I just wish they would call them species instead of races, since that would go some way in underlining the huge physiological differences between them (which is way more problematic when you use the word race). No problem with a looser stat definition per se, there will always be unique individuals in any species that stands out. But I've always been happy to modify such things in dialogue with players, so it doesn't really make a huge change for anything that I do.
This is something I have been thinking for a while, in reality each species then has multiple types, Drow, wood elf, mountain dwarf etc.
It also makes explaining cultural race easier. In my world we have all the different species and there subset, but then we also have whose who come from the tropical climes and also have naturally darker hues of akin/scale/fur tone, and those who come from the colder areas who are paler skinned. 2 elves could be the same stats wise but look very different based on where in my world they come from.
The ASI is only part of the picture. There are still other things assigned to specific species/race/whatever that give the people an identity of their own.
A floating ASI is also something DMs can use as a way of creating similar people in new worlds without having to homebrew a bunch of stuff. If allowed by the DM, a player can also do that.
It's also something users can toggle on this site meaning it's still 100% optional.
I don't see why the existence of floating ASI is causing so much fuss.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I agree. I use different looking creatures of the same type too, and prefer the term creature-type rather than race, but sometimes the word just slips out due to old habits.
But @RaSeyssel it's a misconstrued notion that a penalty to INT means that a creature has less capacity for intelligence. A reduction in attribute cap would mean that. A creature with a -2 in INT and a creature with a +2 in INT still both have an intellectual capacity of 20. The difference in "price" of achieving ones maximum capacities are due to various factors, that do make perfect sense regardless of how it might "look" from the outside.
A 150 year old high-elf whose spent a century cloistered away in the library studying ancient lore IS going to have accrued more overall knowledge then a 15 year old half-Orc, that has spent a decade of his days in the training yard practicing with heavy weapons, and that h-Orc IS going to have developed his muscles to a greater extent than the elf has. This is what bonus's and penalties tend to reflect.
An argument can be made, "What if the h-orc spends a decade cloistered in the library, and the elf spends time in the training yard? -don't floating bonus's make more sence?.
...Perhaps, ... to some extent.
But that h-orc, barring becoming a lich or true-vampire or quasi-deity etc. notwithstanding, will never be able to spend a century cloistered in the library. So it will take more 'effort' (represented as point cost) to acquire the same quantity of knowledge in a tenth of the time that an elf can acquire simply by waiting for it as they go about experiencing their life.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
No but over time if a player has to burn stat increases simply to get that 18-20 in there key stat when picking a different race would give them scope to pick a feat for instance, then they are always a step behind the other party members. If your solution to that is a +1 sword, or wand etc by level 2 then your handing out a powerful magic item that the party may decide to give to someone else to use.
People are starting to try and manufacture reason s why it is so bad really I think, if you haven’t tried it in an actual long term campaign, then by all means have an iPhone muon but please don’t go making assertions as to how it will or wont impact the game. I can tell you categorically it makes it a slightly better experience, it doesn’t break it, doesn’t make characters overpowered and it does open up even bigger character development ideas.
This one's a bit of a 5e problem I hope they fix in 5.5/6e. One reason I like to frontload the party with at least +5 point buy points is because I assume they will be taking feats rather than ASI's and so replace the ASI's they would have had by end game, but up front where it feels more powerful. Really, IMHO, you should be able to take a feat & an ASI or feats should be every 3rd level like they were in 3.5/pathfinder1. Even in the 5e optimization builds I study that use a 27 point array, and generate characters who begin with 16-18 in their primary stat, the suggestion often seems to be to use those first ASI's to get that 20 for caster heavy build at the very least. ... and for some reason the other suggestion is to go for polearm master. |:-(
Also a 5e problem is the idea that a +1 item is "powerful". They changed the relationship of magic compared to 3e where a +1 item is "peanuts". I don't think I've ever experienced this problem of party members not wanting an item that's meant to balance out the party to actually go to the player who needs it. I'll see what I think of if and when the problem should present itself.
Fair enough. I don't think this necessarily creates any deleterious mechanical effects, I just dislike the idea of new players arriving to a table and not necessarily realizing in advance of session 0 (via a presence as an option in the PHB) that they might have to deal with static ASI's (including a penalty one) largely there IMHO for lore's sake (trope maintenance).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
A floating ASI is also something DMs can use as a way of creating similar people in new worlds without having to homebrew a bunch of stuff. If allowed by the DM, a player can also do that.
This sounds like fixed ASIs, just differentiated between otherwise similar groups of people?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
But @RaSeyssel it's a misconstrued notion that a penalty to INT means that a creature has less capacity for intelligence. A reduction in attribute cap would mean that. A creature with a -2 in INT and a creature with a +2 in INT still both have an intellectual capacity of 20. The difference in "price" of achieving ones maximum capacities are due to various factors, that do make perfect sense regardless of how it might "look" from the outside.
A 150 year old high-elf whose spent a century cloistered away in the library studying ancient lore IS going to have accrued more overall knowledge then a 15 year old half-Orc, that has spent a decade of his days in the training yard practicing with heavy weapons, and that h-Orc IS going to have developed his muscles to a greater extent than the elf has. This is what bonus's and penalties tend to reflect.
Sorry my friend, but, in corporate, if you need to explain something that can be misinterpreted, that is bad business. Especially, if the answer is: "Because stereotype".
I am not going to touch on the fact that I disagree with you on the subject, but on the fact that, from a business perspective, Floating ASIs are healthier and - to top it out - more popular with the player base. And that is the basis of my comment on this thread, there is no reason to discuss this subject altogether.
If you dislike it, just homebrew it on your games and good luck, you know?
By this exact same logic, fixed racial ASIs do not lock you out of playing a particular class or "punish" you for doing something outside of the norm. I have never heard of anyone having fixed statblocks for certain races, and Yurei, I don't think you have either. An extra +1 modifier is not going to make or break a character. Those on here arguing that not having floating ASIs took away your player agency are providing false arguments. The only thing it would prevent would be powergaming min/maxers from selecting certain races for certain classes.
“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.”
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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 agree. I use different looking creatures of the same type too, and prefer the term creature-type rather than race, but sometimes the word just slips out due to old habits.
But @RaSeyssel it's a misconstrued notion that a penalty to INT means that a creature has less capacity for intelligence. A reduction in attribute cap would mean that. A creature with a -2 in INT and a creature with a +2 in INT still both have an intellectual capacity of 20. The difference in "price" of achieving ones maximum capacities are due to various factors, that do make perfect sense regardless of how it might "look" from the outside.
A 150 year old high-elf whose spent a century cloistered away in the library studying ancient lore IS going to have accrued more overall knowledge then a 15 year old half-Orc, that has spent a decade of his days in the training yard practicing with heavy weapons, and that h-Orc IS going to have developed his muscles to a greater extent than the elf has. This is what bonus's and penalties tend to reflect.
An argument can be made, "What if the h-orc spends a decade cloistered in the library, and the elf spends time in the training yard? -don't floating bonus's make more sence?.
...Perhaps, ... to some extent.
But that h-orc, barring becoming a lich or true-vampire or quasi-deity etc. notwithstanding, will never be able to spend a century cloistered in the library. So it will take more 'effort' (represented as point cost) to acquire the same quantity of knowledge in a tenth of the time that an elf can acquire simply by waiting for it as they go about experiencing their life.
This defines one of the key problems, this is your perception of the ASI's, in another discussion about this self same thing, another person trying to defend keeping them argued ASI's are natural/inherited abilities and it is skills that are learnt not Intelligence, strength etc. They made the argument that Half Orcs are more stupid and stronger then other races so should always have the +2 strength +1 con stat increases. He also had been playing since first edition
When 2 of you who are anti floating ASI's can't agree on what racial ASI's refer to then I think we have a route issue that is no one really understands what the stats represent, learnt talent, natural skill, a mix of them all.
If learnt skill then it makes the case even higher for Floating ASI's being more "realistic and representative"
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?
5. Yes. Thats how session zero works for campaigns. You are supposed to explain your expectations every time you start a campaign.
2. I don’t mind that they’re “changing mechanics.” I mind that they are removing something that I feel is intrinsic to D&D for me. That should be clear if you read the two posts I linked for you.
5. Please don’t patronize me. I’ve been playing D&D for almost 3 decades. I was running “session 0” back when it was still called “character creation” because everyone created their characters together for the campaign so that they could discuss them and form well-rounded parties. I don’t mind saying “we’re using the racial ASIs, not the floating ones.” What I will mind is the time I’ll loose providing them over and over on a case by case basis because they are no longer provided, not even as an option.
All clear now, or not yet?
[I had other things written out, but I dont think its worth pushing this any further. I understand (at least point 2) that your opinion is that something is now missing from D&D's identity. I (and some others) do not feel the same way, and thats fine. For point 5, I really do not think you are going to lose that much time putting +2/+1 where you want it for post-Tasha's races and communicating this with your players, but I am not going push this point any further either. Best of luck]
By this exact same logic, fixed racial ASIs do not lock you out of playing a particular class or "punish" you for doing something outside of the norm. I have never heard of anyone having fixed statblocks for certain races, and Yurei, I don't think you have either. An extra +1 modifier is not going to make or break a character. Those on here arguing that not having floating ASIs took away your player agency are providing false arguments. The only thing it would prevent would be powergaming min/maxers from selecting certain races for certain classes.
“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.”
Which is fine, but I think (I know Yurei will disagree with me here) having the floating ASIs optional already achieved that. Being able to "recreate the bonuses that existed previously" is nice and all, but doesn't provide fixed bonuses that didn't exist previously (and also requires having access to said bonuses in the first place, which assumes owning the older books as I believe the new ones don't list them).
Which is fine, but I think (I know Yurei will disagree with me here) having the floating ASIs optional already achieved that. Being able to "recreate the bonuses that existed previously" is nice and all, but doesn't provide fixed bonuses that didn't exist previously (and also requires having access to said bonuses in the first place, which assumes owning the older books as I believe the new ones don't list them).
To be honest, I agree with you. I think they are doing away with fixed ASI's and not actually making any sort of real concessions to the folks who liked fixed ASI's. I think the game is in a better state with floating ASI's, mind you, but I can also see that Wizards selling the Tasha's as an option and then making it the rule going forward was them trying to have their cake and eat it too by baiting and switching the old school ASI fans.
That said, I don't see how they could include "suggested" racial ASI's without again "putting their hand on the scale" of character decisions, so it's kind of damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Yurei is fine with optional options. Like Yurei said in other threads prior to this, the last several characters Yurei's made/commonly plays have all used their normal, fixed starting bonuses. Mirage Over Burning Sands kept her DEX/cha despite Charisma being an actively terrible choice for her. Yes, the rolled array she got for that game helped, but nevertheless. That's what happens sometimes when a DM says 'we roll stats for this game". Mistletoe (whose sheet is private as a campaign rule) was very fortunate in that her drowish DEX/cha lined up with the stats she needed as a Dexy paladin, but she also could've ended up as a ranger or rogue just as easily and wasted a point of Charisma again. Starlight Through Driving Rain kept her CHA/int despite being an artificer/wizard that desperately needs the highest possible Intelligence score. Knioke's native DEX/cha semi-sorta works for a Ranger, but again - that Charisma bonus is wasted on her, yet I retained it regardless and punched up her Charisma even further. Talisman is human, she doesn't count - save that yes, Yurei played a human for a while before the game died. And Ilyara is an absolute tire-fire disaster of misoptimization, so actively terrible at everything that all those people who insist that making bad characters is the only way D&D can be fun would be absolutely overjoyed to see her, point and say "SEE?! Bad terrible awful characters that can't do their jobs are more fun!" Easily the worst character in her party, absolutely the party's first choice to sacrifice to a blood god for boons of the flesh. Have still been playing her in Wysperra's PbP game for a hundred and fortyish pages now.
What Yurei does not agree with is the idea espoused by so many here that "off" class/species mixes deserve to be actively punished for existing, and that "overcoming the handicap" makes for more fun gameplay. Those folks would look at Mira and say "tabaxi are just not supposed to be wizards. There's no reason for a tabaxi to be a wizard. Take a -2 penalty to Intelligence because you're an easily distractible catgirl, and then if you continue to insist on playing a stupid anime catgirl at my table you make her into a ranger or rogue like tabaxi are supposed to be." Doesn't matter that Mira's entire characterization is predicated on having a rare and powerful natural talent for magic. As she herself has said, "magic comes easily to me, and I do not shy from it." But Shepherd specifically is calling for every last single nonhuman species in D&D to have a -2 to something, and so are many of the other folks fishing for fixed modifiers.
Thought experiment: you're explaining D&D to a new player, and you say "these numbers define your character's abilities. They can only ever go up to 20, and increasing them after character creation is super hard and comes at the cost of being able to pick out cool abilities for your character. For certain characters, having a bad number in their most defining attribute makes it really hard for them to contribute to a game. If you make your character a certain way you can start with a 17 in your most defining attribute. If you make your character another way, and it won't at all be obvious which way is which before you decide on your idea, you'll only be able to start with a 13. Everything clear? Cool! let's make a character!"
What do you think the reaction will be?
Yurei believes that if a DM can't come up with a better reason for "you can't do that" than "because Tolkien didn't write about catgirl wizards!", that DM might need to unclench a little. Valid reasons for "no catgirl wizards" absolutely exist, but if the DM can't explain those reasons to a reasonable player's satisfaction, perhaps that player has some right to be annoyed?
I came into this thread with a generally unvaforable attitude toward it, but am thinking a bit more positively now.
I liked the idea of allowing someone wanting to play a dwarf wizard for example to move their +1 stat to int so they wouldn't feel as underpowered for doing so. But I disliked the put them wherever you want style. To me it removes a lot of the flavor from the fantasy races. It makes sense that dwarves are heartier than elves and goliaths are stronger than halflings. As well as making all of the fantasy races sort of humans with pointy ears or blue skin. And think it adds to min/maxing characters rather than building for story, though I suppose people will do it either way no matter what the design is.
The only sentient species in real life are humans and we're all basically the same outside of culture. But look at twin studies and it becomes pretty clear that disposition and physicality have a strong genetic influence. Fantasy races are more in line with species than ethnicity so it makes sense that people born from those fantasy races would have characteristics that differ from others.
That said, player characters are often cut from a different cloth than the rest of their kind and it allows for greater creativity in character creation without having to feel weaker than more optimized characters. I think where I'm at now is allow players to use floating ASIs but keep the standard racial modifiers for the populations as a whole. And I like the idea that I've seen raised here about allowing fantasy races with certain modifiers to have a higher cap on those traits (ie. elves with a 22 dex cap). And let me also throw in a vote for decoupling level ASIs from feats while I'm at it.
My only problem with this system is that some feats such as Fey Touched are extremely strong, but other feats are very lackluster. I believe that more feats should give +1 to ability scores. Then you may see more Chefs for example. This will add to variety.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
48
Retired Military plenty of time to play just about any night.
I came into this thread with a generally unvaforable attitude toward it, but am thinking a bit more positively now.
I liked the idea of allowing someone wanting to play a dwarf wizard for example to move their +1 stat to int so they wouldn't feel as underpowered for doing so. But I disliked the put them wherever you want style. To me it removes a lot of the flavor from the fantasy races. It makes sense that dwarves are heartier than elves and goliaths are stronger than halflings. As well as sort of making all of the fantasy races sort of humans with pointy ears or blue skin. And think it adds to min/maxing.
Whenever these sorts of arguments come up (and they come up super often in these threads), I find it odd that people only attribute these characteristics to where your score increases go and not to any of the other features of a given race.
"Dwarves are heartier than elves" This is absolutely correct, but not limited to their Con bonus. Even with floating ASIs, dwarves still get Dwarven Resilience and Hill Dwarves get Dwarven Toughness.
"Goliaths are stronger than halflings" This is absolutely correct, but not limited to their Str bonus. Even with floating ASIs, goliaths get Powerful Build and are Medium creatures (whereas halflings are Small).This latter detail is important because it means that a goliath can use Heavy weapons without disadvantage and can Grapple/Shove larger creatures than a halfling could.
As for min/maxing, an elf has always been able to get a 20 Con and a halfling has always been able to get a 20 Str if they wanted to, this change just lets them get those scores 1 ASI faster than before. While this can play into min/maxing, I think that it is okay for the tradeoff of players in general not feeling they need to play certain race/class combos just to align their racial bonuses with their primary stats.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
What you have to understand is that I (and the rest of us curmudgeonly grognards) have different emotional associations with Racial ASIs because character creation and progression used to be muuucch different, and that still holds a certain emotional attachment for us.
Back in the TSR days one didn’t “build” a character (we couldn’t), one “generated” a character.
Roll Ability scores, strait 3d6, in order Str — Cha.
Figure out whatever class (or classes) best fit those stats (and choose).
There were no Ability Score Adjustments at all, anywhere, at any point, from any sources other than the ones from your Race that you got at character creation, and magic items (like the Tomes & Manuals, or the Belts & Gauntlets). Back then Ability Score Adjustments we’re absolutely integral to Races.
On top of that, AD&D’s shift towards a Race/Class system was such a paradigm shift for gaming in general that it got adopted by WotC and applied to Creatures in M:tG. The original Lord of Atlantis was only a “Lord,” not a “Merfolk,” so even if you had 4 of them out they were all still just 2/2 creatures. It took a few editions for WotC to finally take the players’ note and adopt the same Race/Class system, but ever since the Lord of Atlantis has been a “Merfolk Lord” and if you have 4 of them out they are all 5/5 creatures with Islandwalk. (Another variation on the theme of Racial Stat adjustments.)
So you see, for those of us complaining about this, it isn’t that we’re complaining about a shift towards the popular play style of floating ASIs. We’re complaining about the simultaneous shift away from something we have long-standing positive mental associations and emotional attachments to from our treasured memories.
In addition, I for one at least am also more than a little sick and tired of people telling me I’m a terrible, horrible fun-hater who should feel bad because my happy, cherished memories have given me positive emotional associations with Racial ASIs. I am not a bad person because I liked (and still do) “generating” a character, and have happy memories that I feel are being dredged through the muck and taken away from me. Just as youse all aren’t bad folks for feeling differently than I do.
As I have stated multiple times, I don’t give a fig if the rest of the D&D playing population of the worlds wants to play with floaters (as long as you wash your hands afterwards 🤣😂🤣). Have fun. But please stop telling me that my fun is (and always has been) wrong and I should feel bad for it. And please stop dismissing my hurt feelings like I don’t count and my feelings don’t matter.
I don’t begrudge anyone else their fun in this regard, so please stop 💩ing all over mine while you’re at it. Is that really so much to ask? Really…?!?
It might be helpful to view the "low primary stat problem" through the lens of delayed gratification. As in, if my class's primary stat won't reach the max, usually 20, until level 16 or whatever, then the question is basically, is my DM sympathetic towards my not wanting, or in some cases not being able, to wait that long? (In a level 1-10 game, for instance, it'll literally never happen.)
Personally I feel like there are sufficient numbers of delayed features built into the core structure -- class features and spells being unlocked as you level up, magic items being acquired as you complete tasks -- that it's entirely fine to let players have their ASIs upfront. I mean, really what we're trying to do here is provide a sense of progress, not reflect reality. If we were trying to reflect reality, you wouldn't be able to increase Charisma by killing a bunch of elementals in a cave. The very loose sense of verisimilitude that you get from the notion of "more experience = better abilities" is sufficient to make the mechanics understandable, and that's all it needs to be, and that's all it is. Any specific realism-related complaints need to be placed upon the altar and stabbed with this Fact Dagger, repeatedly until dead, as an offering to the ancient and cryptic gods of game design, who simply do not care whether biological essentialism is Cool And Groovy, as they are from another dimension and have no moral code that we could possibly comprehend.
That's a fact nobody ever seems to really acknowledge while advocating for the superior gameplay of "wait to be awesome until you're high level!"
Nobody ever gets to be high level. Ever.
The overwhelming majority of campaigns die at or before fifth level. So few last past 12th that Wizards doesn't bother publishing material for thirteenth and up (which, frankly, I find horrible and a total self-fulfilling prophecy, but eh. Different-thread issue). Levels in D&D come extremely slowly, if you ever get more than two ASIs you're particularly fortunate, and the whole "everybody is an Epic Hero by 20th!" thing is a disingenuous lie because nobody ever gets to 20th level. Yes, this wasn't a problem in older editions of D&D. You could also make twelfth level in, like...a month in older editions of D&D, and as Sposta said your numbers didn't matter and you never got to play what you felt like playing anyways so nobody cared if they got to higher levels or not.
In 5e, where it can easily take you over a year simply to hit eighth level and your chances of seeing twelfth are statistically well below one in a thousand? Maybe - just maybe - telling people "it's okay if you're awful at your job at first because by sixteenth you'll be as good as everybody else!" is kinda no different than actively lying to them.
2) the idea espoused by so many here that "off" class/species mixes deserve to be actively punished for existing
1) I was only refering to your argument that there are DMs for who optional stuff isn't optional - if it's written in the rules it's in the rules. That's all. I don't subscribe to this argument, but if that's your experience then I'm not telling you you're wrong.
2) This "actively punished for existing" bit seems a bit excessive though, or at least the notion that "many" espouse it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
This is something I have been thinking for a while, in reality each species then has multiple types, Drow, wood elf, mountain dwarf etc.
It also makes explaining cultural race easier. In my world we have all the different species and there subset, but then we also have whose who come from the tropical climes and also have naturally darker hues of akin/scale/fur tone, and those who come from the colder areas who are paler skinned. 2 elves could be the same stats wise but look very different based on where in my world they come from.
The ASI is only part of the picture. There are still other things assigned to specific species/race/whatever that give the people an identity of their own.
A floating ASI is also something DMs can use as a way of creating similar people in new worlds without having to homebrew a bunch of stuff. If allowed by the DM, a player can also do that.
It's also something users can toggle on this site meaning it's still 100% optional.
I don't see why the existence of floating ASI is causing so much fuss.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I agree. I use different looking creatures of the same type too, and prefer the term creature-type rather than race, but sometimes the word just slips out due to old habits.
But @RaSeyssel it's a misconstrued notion that a penalty to INT means that a creature has less capacity for intelligence. A reduction in attribute cap would mean that. A creature with a -2 in INT and a creature with a +2 in INT still both have an intellectual capacity of 20. The difference in "price" of achieving ones maximum capacities are due to various factors, that do make perfect sense regardless of how it might "look" from the outside.
A 150 year old high-elf whose spent a century cloistered away in the library studying ancient lore IS going to have accrued more overall knowledge then a 15 year old half-Orc, that has spent a decade of his days in the training yard practicing with heavy weapons, and that h-Orc IS going to have developed his muscles to a greater extent than the elf has. This is what bonus's and penalties tend to reflect.
An argument can be made, "What if the h-orc spends a decade cloistered in the library, and the elf spends time in the training yard? -don't floating bonus's make more sence?.
...Perhaps, ... to some extent.
But that h-orc, barring becoming a lich or true-vampire or quasi-deity etc. notwithstanding, will never be able to spend a century cloistered in the library. So it will take more 'effort' (represented as point cost) to acquire the same quantity of knowledge in a tenth of the time that an elf can acquire simply by waiting for it as they go about experiencing their life.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
This one's a bit of a 5e problem I hope they fix in 5.5/6e. One reason I like to frontload the party with at least +5 point buy points is because I assume they will be taking feats rather than ASI's and so replace the ASI's they would have had by end game, but up front where it feels more powerful. Really, IMHO, you should be able to take a feat & an ASI or feats should be every 3rd level like they were in 3.5/pathfinder1. Even in the 5e optimization builds I study that use a 27 point array, and generate characters who begin with 16-18 in their primary stat, the suggestion often seems to be to use those first ASI's to get that 20 for caster heavy build at the very least. ... and for some reason the other suggestion is to go for polearm master. |:-(
Also a 5e problem is the idea that a +1 item is "powerful". They changed the relationship of magic compared to 3e where a +1 item is "peanuts". I don't think I've ever experienced this problem of party members not wanting an item that's meant to balance out the party to actually go to the player who needs it. I'll see what I think of if and when the problem should present itself.
Fair enough. I don't think this necessarily creates any deleterious mechanical effects, I just dislike the idea of new players arriving to a table and not necessarily realizing in advance of session 0 (via a presence as an option in the PHB) that they might have to deal with static ASI's (including a penalty one) largely there IMHO for lore's sake (trope maintenance).
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
This sounds like fixed ASIs, just differentiated between otherwise similar groups of people?
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Sorry my friend, but, in corporate, if you need to explain something that can be misinterpreted, that is bad business. Especially, if the answer is: "Because stereotype".
I am not going to touch on the fact that I disagree with you on the subject, but on the fact that, from a business perspective, Floating ASIs are healthier and - to top it out - more popular with the player base. And that is the basis of my comment on this thread, there is no reason to discuss this subject altogether.
If you dislike it, just homebrew it on your games and good luck, you know?
Mmm, maybe not "punish" but fixed racial stat bumps were certainly weighting the scale for certain peoples to fulfill certain classes, something even Jeremy Crawford acknowledges here in a recent interview.
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!
This defines one of the key problems, this is your perception of the ASI's, in another discussion about this self same thing, another person trying to defend keeping them argued ASI's are natural/inherited abilities and it is skills that are learnt not Intelligence, strength etc. They made the argument that Half Orcs are more stupid and stronger then other races so should always have the +2 strength +1 con stat increases. He also had been playing since first edition
When 2 of you who are anti floating ASI's can't agree on what racial ASI's refer to then I think we have a route issue that is no one really understands what the stats represent, learnt talent, natural skill, a mix of them all.
If learnt skill then it makes the case even higher for Floating ASI's being more "realistic and representative"
[I had other things written out, but I dont think its worth pushing this any further. I understand (at least point 2) that your opinion is that something is now missing from D&D's identity. I (and some others) do not feel the same way, and thats fine. For point 5, I really do not think you are going to lose that much time putting +2/+1 where you want it for post-Tasha's races and communicating this with your players, but I am not going push this point any further either. Best of luck]
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Which is fine, but I think (I know Yurei will disagree with me here) having the floating ASIs optional already achieved that. Being able to "recreate the bonuses that existed previously" is nice and all, but doesn't provide fixed bonuses that didn't exist previously (and also requires having access to said bonuses in the first place, which assumes owning the older books as I believe the new ones don't list them).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
To be honest, I agree with you. I think they are doing away with fixed ASI's and not actually making any sort of real concessions to the folks who liked fixed ASI's. I think the game is in a better state with floating ASI's, mind you, but I can also see that Wizards selling the Tasha's as an option and then making it the rule going forward was them trying to have their cake and eat it too by baiting and switching the old school ASI fans.
That said, I don't see how they could include "suggested" racial ASI's without again "putting their hand on the scale" of character decisions, so it's kind of damned if they do and damned if they don't.
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!
Yurei is fine with optional options. Like Yurei said in other threads prior to this, the last several characters Yurei's made/commonly plays have all used their normal, fixed starting bonuses. Mirage Over Burning Sands kept her DEX/cha despite Charisma being an actively terrible choice for her. Yes, the rolled array she got for that game helped, but nevertheless. That's what happens sometimes when a DM says 'we roll stats for this game". Mistletoe (whose sheet is private as a campaign rule) was very fortunate in that her drowish DEX/cha lined up with the stats she needed as a Dexy paladin, but she also could've ended up as a ranger or rogue just as easily and wasted a point of Charisma again. Starlight Through Driving Rain kept her CHA/int despite being an artificer/wizard that desperately needs the highest possible Intelligence score. Knioke's native DEX/cha semi-sorta works for a Ranger, but again - that Charisma bonus is wasted on her, yet I retained it regardless and punched up her Charisma even further. Talisman is human, she doesn't count - save that yes, Yurei played a human for a while before the game died. And Ilyara is an absolute tire-fire disaster of misoptimization, so actively terrible at everything that all those people who insist that making bad characters is the only way D&D can be fun would be absolutely overjoyed to see her, point and say "SEE?! Bad terrible awful characters that can't do their jobs are more fun!" Easily the worst character in her party, absolutely the party's first choice to sacrifice to a blood god for boons of the flesh. Have still been playing her in Wysperra's PbP game for a hundred and fortyish pages now.
What Yurei does not agree with is the idea espoused by so many here that "off" class/species mixes deserve to be actively punished for existing, and that "overcoming the handicap" makes for more fun gameplay. Those folks would look at Mira and say "tabaxi are just not supposed to be wizards. There's no reason for a tabaxi to be a wizard. Take a -2 penalty to Intelligence because you're an easily distractible catgirl, and then if you continue to insist on playing a stupid anime catgirl at my table you make her into a ranger or rogue like tabaxi are supposed to be." Doesn't matter that Mira's entire characterization is predicated on having a rare and powerful natural talent for magic. As she herself has said, "magic comes easily to me, and I do not shy from it." But Shepherd specifically is calling for every last single nonhuman species in D&D to have a -2 to something, and so are many of the other folks fishing for fixed modifiers.
Thought experiment: you're explaining D&D to a new player, and you say "these numbers define your character's abilities. They can only ever go up to 20, and increasing them after character creation is super hard and comes at the cost of being able to pick out cool abilities for your character. For certain characters, having a bad number in their most defining attribute makes it really hard for them to contribute to a game. If you make your character a certain way you can start with a 17 in your most defining attribute. If you make your character another way, and it won't at all be obvious which way is which before you decide on your idea, you'll only be able to start with a 13. Everything clear? Cool! let's make a character!"
What do you think the reaction will be?
Yurei believes that if a DM can't come up with a better reason for "you can't do that" than "because Tolkien didn't write about catgirl wizards!", that DM might need to unclench a little. Valid reasons for "no catgirl wizards" absolutely exist, but if the DM can't explain those reasons to a reasonable player's satisfaction, perhaps that player has some right to be annoyed?
Please do not contact or message me.
I came into this thread with a generally unvaforable attitude toward it, but am thinking a bit more positively now.
I liked the idea of allowing someone wanting to play a dwarf wizard for example to move their +1 stat to int so they wouldn't feel as underpowered for doing so. But I disliked the put them wherever you want style. To me it removes a lot of the flavor from the fantasy races. It makes sense that dwarves are heartier than elves and goliaths are stronger than halflings. As well as making all of the fantasy races sort of humans with pointy ears or blue skin. And think it adds to min/maxing characters rather than building for story, though I suppose people will do it either way no matter what the design is.
The only sentient species in real life are humans and we're all basically the same outside of culture. But look at twin studies and it becomes pretty clear that disposition and physicality have a strong genetic influence. Fantasy races are more in line with species than ethnicity so it makes sense that people born from those fantasy races would have characteristics that differ from others.
That said, player characters are often cut from a different cloth than the rest of their kind and it allows for greater creativity in character creation without having to feel weaker than more optimized characters. I think where I'm at now is allow players to use floating ASIs but keep the standard racial modifiers for the populations as a whole. And I like the idea that I've seen raised here about allowing fantasy races with certain modifiers to have a higher cap on those traits (ie. elves with a 22 dex cap). And let me also throw in a vote for decoupling level ASIs from feats while I'm at it.
My only problem with this system is that some feats such as Fey Touched are extremely strong, but other feats are very lackluster. I believe that more feats should give +1 to ability scores. Then you may see more Chefs for example. This will add to variety.
48
Retired Military plenty of time to play just about any night.
Whenever these sorts of arguments come up (and they come up super often in these threads), I find it odd that people only attribute these characteristics to where your score increases go and not to any of the other features of a given race.
"Dwarves are heartier than elves" This is absolutely correct, but not limited to their Con bonus. Even with floating ASIs, dwarves still get Dwarven Resilience and Hill Dwarves get Dwarven Toughness.
"Goliaths are stronger than halflings" This is absolutely correct, but not limited to their Str bonus. Even with floating ASIs, goliaths get Powerful Build and are Medium creatures (whereas halflings are Small).This latter detail is important because it means that a goliath can use Heavy weapons without disadvantage and can Grapple/Shove larger creatures than a halfling could.
As for min/maxing, an elf has always been able to get a 20 Con and a halfling has always been able to get a 20 Str if they wanted to, this change just lets them get those scores 1 ASI faster than before. While this can play into min/maxing, I think that it is okay for the tradeoff of players in general not feeling they need to play certain race/class combos just to align their racial bonuses with their primary stats.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
What you have to understand is that I (and the rest of us curmudgeonly grognards) have different emotional associations with Racial ASIs because character creation and progression used to be muuucch different, and that still holds a certain emotional attachment for us.
Back in the TSR days one didn’t “build” a character (we couldn’t), one “generated” a character.
There were no Ability Score Adjustments at all, anywhere, at any point, from any sources other than the ones from your Race that you got at character creation, and magic items (like the Tomes & Manuals, or the Belts & Gauntlets). Back then Ability Score Adjustments we’re absolutely integral to Races.
On top of that, AD&D’s shift towards a Race/Class system was such a paradigm shift for gaming in general that it got adopted by WotC and applied to Creatures in M:tG. The original Lord of Atlantis was only a “Lord,” not a “Merfolk,” so even if you had 4 of them out they were all still just 2/2 creatures. It took a few editions for WotC to finally take the players’ note and adopt the same Race/Class system, but ever since the Lord of Atlantis has been a “Merfolk Lord” and if you have 4 of them out they are all 5/5 creatures with Islandwalk. (Another variation on the theme of Racial Stat adjustments.)
So you see, for those of us complaining about this, it isn’t that we’re complaining about a shift towards the popular play style of floating ASIs. We’re complaining about the simultaneous shift away from something we have long-standing positive mental associations and emotional attachments to from our treasured memories.
In addition, I for one at least am also more than a little sick and tired of people telling me I’m a terrible, horrible fun-hater who should feel bad because my happy, cherished memories have given me positive emotional associations with Racial ASIs. I am not a bad person because I liked (and still do) “generating” a character, and have happy memories that I feel are being dredged through the muck and taken away from me. Just as youse all aren’t bad folks for feeling differently than I do.
As I have stated multiple times, I don’t give a fig if the rest of the D&D playing population of the worlds wants to play with floaters (as long as you wash your hands afterwards 🤣😂🤣). Have fun. But please stop telling me that my fun is (and always has been) wrong and I should feel bad for it. And please stop dismissing my hurt feelings like I don’t count and my feelings don’t matter.
I don’t begrudge anyone else their fun in this regard, so please stop 💩ing all over mine while you’re at it. Is that really so much to ask? Really…?!?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
It might be helpful to view the "low primary stat problem" through the lens of delayed gratification. As in, if my class's primary stat won't reach the max, usually 20, until level 16 or whatever, then the question is basically, is my DM sympathetic towards my not wanting, or in some cases not being able, to wait that long? (In a level 1-10 game, for instance, it'll literally never happen.)
Personally I feel like there are sufficient numbers of delayed features built into the core structure -- class features and spells being unlocked as you level up, magic items being acquired as you complete tasks -- that it's entirely fine to let players have their ASIs upfront. I mean, really what we're trying to do here is provide a sense of progress, not reflect reality. If we were trying to reflect reality, you wouldn't be able to increase Charisma by killing a bunch of elementals in a cave. The very loose sense of verisimilitude that you get from the notion of "more experience = better abilities" is sufficient to make the mechanics understandable, and that's all it needs to be, and that's all it is. Any specific realism-related complaints need to be placed upon the altar and stabbed with this Fact Dagger, repeatedly until dead, as an offering to the ancient and cryptic gods of game design, who simply do not care whether biological essentialism is Cool And Groovy, as they are from another dimension and have no moral code that we could possibly comprehend.
That's a fact nobody ever seems to really acknowledge while advocating for the superior gameplay of "wait to be awesome until you're high level!"
Nobody ever gets to be high level. Ever.
The overwhelming majority of campaigns die at or before fifth level. So few last past 12th that Wizards doesn't bother publishing material for thirteenth and up (which, frankly, I find horrible and a total self-fulfilling prophecy, but eh. Different-thread issue). Levels in D&D come extremely slowly, if you ever get more than two ASIs you're particularly fortunate, and the whole "everybody is an Epic Hero by 20th!" thing is a disingenuous lie because nobody ever gets to 20th level. Yes, this wasn't a problem in older editions of D&D. You could also make twelfth level in, like...a month in older editions of D&D, and as Sposta said your numbers didn't matter and you never got to play what you felt like playing anyways so nobody cared if they got to higher levels or not.
In 5e, where it can easily take you over a year simply to hit eighth level and your chances of seeing twelfth are statistically well below one in a thousand? Maybe - just maybe - telling people "it's okay if you're awful at your job at first because by sixteenth you'll be as good as everybody else!" is kinda no different than actively lying to them.
Please do not contact or message me.
1) I was only refering to your argument that there are DMs for who optional stuff isn't optional - if it's written in the rules it's in the rules. That's all. I don't subscribe to this argument, but if that's your experience then I'm not telling you you're wrong.
2) This "actively punished for existing" bit seems a bit excessive though, or at least the notion that "many" espouse it.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Yurei's penchant for hyperbole aside, fixed racial ASI's do impose an opportunity cost for not choosing a class that utilize the given stats.
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!