I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?" And were worried you were making the right choice, or getting cheated out of the optimum option because they gave you an answer that didn't entirely add up like "Book smarts vs. Street smarts".
I guess I’m lucky because I didn’t have that experience. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I asked what the difference was between Int & Wis, etc., but I didn’t worry about making “the right choice” because my friends told me it didn’t really matter because in D&D there are no “wrong” choices so I should feel free to make my character with any combination of race and class I wanted. So I did and have never looked back. That’s part of why I don’t worry so much about building an optimized character, because there are no “wrong choices” in D&D. I wish more people could get that message and stop worrying about getting the best possible Ability score array for their “build” and just have fun playing whatever floats their boat, even if it is a step behind optimized.
"I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?""
I will fully admit it was along those lines at first because they sound so similar in the fact they're mental based; this is why I love the tomato breakdown chart for understanding Stats...
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
😁
Still I don't see how hard it is to break the starting bonuses from Stats, it's just again saying "and now you can a + to a score"; if it's their first time playing surely you aren't going to drop the whole PHB on them so start by asking if you want melee or range and magic or no and then focus on the class you picked because all they'll first care on is which gives them biggest important number to be bad*ss in their class because they just want to feel like a hero the first time instead coming in for story more than not (I feel most start for the action rather than story anyways). This doesn't eliminate the need for pre-generated characters because they are the easiest way to get a game quickly going and show people what the mechanics can do, but if you want them to experience the game from the start by doing design then walk them through and say A or B and tree through the options from there. Stat bonuses matter more for class features than anything since the game is mainly combat focused and only recently has come more into embracing social play so a lot of character building really is A or B until you come to numbers and really that's just rolling and getting your base stats and then doing a simple 2 choice math on 2 numbers because if someone is walking you through it they'll tell you the two high numbers you need for the class you picked and again most are going to drop the bonuses into there thinking big numbers equal success not realizing yet it's more about your rolls than bonuses.
Maybe the 6e PHB should include the tomato chart for quick understanding lol.
"Adventures are generally skipped by anyone other than a collector or a DM."
You hurt me with the truth here! That said I really still want them to do more because the flip side of doing nothing is people become tired of playing the same stories over and over and while yes there is homebrew some DMs reach burn out faster doing all the work and no DMs mean no playing which means zero sells! Do you know how hard it is to find a DM first of all? Groups can't risk losing theirs. Maybe that's something Wizards should focus on next phase - making the DM aside as easy to get into as 5e has made the PHB to get into the game; if you aren't doing grand adventures do a lot of one shot material which can be plugged into big campaigns later but are also super new DM friendly so when one gets burned out a new person isn't so scared to step in for awhile.
Running a one shot your first time is a lot less stressful than doing a whole campagin off the bat unless you've been prepping this campaign world for awhile at home during other sessions ha.
"then best to just to do away with Racial ASIs completely"
I'm actually super fine with this Verenti; I've personally never understood bonuses being tied to race - why does an elf get +2 Dex? They're not more bendy than anyone else thin. Why does a half-elf get +2 to Charisma and +1 to two other stats but a half-orc only gets a +2 and a +1...shouldn't they have an extra plus +1 also as a half breed race? Why do humans get +1 to all abilities but all other races have set bonus limits and designations?!
If bonuses are going to have to be tied to something it should be class as Stats effect your skills and Skills are what you can do and what you need for the best class build. Again you can claim this maxes the builds depending on rolls but again like with races you'd have just set things and maxers are going to find a way to max if that's all they're really here for at the end of the day. To me it makes more sense a paladin or cleric would have a +2 to Strength from carrying around all that heavy armor over the years than it does a half-orc would have it just because they're a half-orc.
Biology is a factor but so is your life circumstances - a mountain dwarf living in the city who comes from an easy life for whatever background reason isn't going to be as strong as a mountain dwarf who loves and works in the mountains and thus exerts themselves more physically working each day so why would both get a +2 to Strength just because they're both mountain dwarves?
"Brute force of numbers shouldn't be your strategy for success."
I think that's sadly how most see it though because that's how we've been conditioned over the years - big numbers equal better chance to win and winning is good even though "winning" isn't suppose to be the focus of the game now. There's still a heavy seeming emphasis on combat so the more damage you can do the better your character in some people's mind even if they'd really have a better time building towards RP "wins" and enjoying the story. If you want big damage outputs only why not just play an old school fighting game?
Also big numbers don't guarantee success - an 18 with a +4 modifier especially at higher levels isn't going to do you any good when you keep rolling below 10 all night!
"I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?""
I will fully admit it was along those lines at first because they sound so similar in the fact they're mental based; this is why I love the tomato breakdown chart for understanding Stats...
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
😁
I like the umbrella analogy myself. Wisdom tells you it’s raining, Intelligence tells you to take an umbrella. 😉
"I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?""
I will fully admit it was along those lines at first because they sound so similar in the fact they're mental based; this is why I love the tomato breakdown chart for understanding Stats...
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
😁
I like the umbrella analogy myself. Wisdom tells you it’s raining, Intelligence tells you to take an umbrella. 😉
"I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?""
I will fully admit it was along those lines at first because they sound so similar in the fact they're mental based; this is why I love the tomato breakdown chart for understanding Stats...
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
😁
I like the umbrella analogy myself. Wisdom tells you it’s raining, Intelligence tells you to take an umbrella. 😉
You may have gotten that backwards.
Wisdom (Perception) to notice the rain. Wisdom is all about noticing stuff (perception, insight, survival), Intelligence is all about knowing/deducing stuff (investigation, history, nature). I didn’t get it backwards, D&D did. 🤷♂️
"I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?""
I will fully admit it was along those lines at first because they sound so similar in the fact they're mental based; this is why I love the tomato breakdown chart for understanding Stats...
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
😁
I like the umbrella analogy myself. Wisdom tells you it’s raining, Intelligence tells you to take an umbrella. 😉
You may have gotten that backwards.
Wisdom (Perception) to notice the rain. Wisdom is all about noticing stuff (perception, insight, survival), Intelligence is all about knowing/deducing stuff (investigation, history, nature). I didn’t get it backwards, D&D did. 🤷♂️
On the contrary. Knowing that the water falling from the sky is intelligence. It's understanding what the phenomenon is. Understanding how to use that knowledge (ala insight and survival) is Wisdom. Even in D&D.
"I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?""
I will fully admit it was along those lines at first because they sound so similar in the fact they're mental based; this is why I love the tomato breakdown chart for understanding Stats...
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
😁
I like the umbrella analogy myself. Wisdom tells you it’s raining, Intelligence tells you to take an umbrella. 😉
You may have gotten that backwards.
Wisdom (Perception) to notice the rain. Wisdom is all about noticing stuff (perception, insight, survival), Intelligence is all about knowing/deducing stuff (investigation, history, nature). I didn’t get it backwards, D&D did. 🤷♂️
On the contrary. Knowing that the water falling from the sky is intelligence. It's understanding what the phenomenon is. Understanding how to use that knowledge (ala insight and survival) is Wisdom. Even in D&D.
I agree that’s how it should work, but that’s not how D&D is designed. And to prove I’m not just whistling Dixie over here:
Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason.
Intelligence Checks
An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning. The Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion skills reflect aptitude in certain kinds of Intelligence checks.
Wisdom reflects how attuned you are to the world around you and represents perceptiveness and intuition.
Wisdom Checks
A Wisdom check might reflect an effort to read body language, understand someone’s feelings, notice things about the environment, or care for an injured person. The Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, and Survival skills reflect aptitude in certain kinds of Wisdom checks.
So in D&D, it is quite literally a Wisdom check to notice it’s raining, and an Intelligence check to deduce that an umbrella would be prudent. 🤷♂️ I dunno what else to tell ya.
I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?" And were worried you were making the right choice, or getting cheated out of the optimum option because they gave you an answer that didn't entirely add up like "Book smarts vs. Street smarts".
I guess I’m lucky because I didn’t have that experience. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I asked what the difference was between Int & Wis, etc., but I didn’t worry about making “the right choice” because my friends told me it didn’t really matter because in D&D there are no “wrong” choices so I should feel free to make my character with any combination of race and class I wanted. So I did and have never looked back. That’s part of why I don’t worry so much about building an optimized character, because there are no “wrong choices” in D&D. I wish more people could get that message and stop worrying about getting the best possible Ability score array for their “build” and just have fun playing whatever floats their boat, even if it is a step behind optimized.
Hot take: there are absolutely wrong choices in D&D. Without wrong choices, there's also no right choices, and the entire game is about making enough right choices over wrong ones that eventually you get to a Good End instead of a Bad End.
Character generation is different than the core gameplay loop itself, but it's also part of the game. There's choices you can make during chargen that will make your game harder to play. Choices you can make that will close off more options than they open, choices you can make that will leave you much more vulnerable to Bad End. There are choices a player can make that will leave them a much slimmer margin for error than they might have otherwise had and require them to be much more on point during play. An experienced gamer/tabletop gamer/D&Der/whatever-your-title-of-choice-is can work with that. They know how to extract maximum value from even horrifically bad initial chargen choices and can make their impact felt regardless of those awful choices. Not everybody has those skills, though.
A character in a D&D game grew up in their world. They grew up learning how to survive and thrive, knowing the physics of their world and working within them. They will know what their strengths and weaknesses are, and moreover they will know what their strengths and weaknesses should be. They will know what gets people killed in their world, and what allows people to survive. Players deserve the same baseline knowledge, and they deserve to be allowed to play characters that do not require DM fiat to survive their first goblin cave. Mastery of the system and its underlying mechanics should be rewarded as much as mastery of the narrative and ability to act and embody a character, and to do that there needs to be right choices, wrong choices, and very different results stemming from each.
I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?" And were worried you were making the right choice, or getting cheated out of the optimum option because they gave you an answer that didn't entirely add up like "Book smarts vs. Street smarts".
I guess I’m lucky because I didn’t have that experience. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I asked what the difference was between Int & Wis, etc., but I didn’t worry about making “the right choice” because my friends told me it didn’t really matter because in D&D there are no “wrong” choices so I should feel free to make my character with any combination of race and class I wanted. So I did and have never looked back. That’s part of why I don’t worry so much about building an optimized character, because there are no “wrong choices” in D&D. I wish more people could get that message and stop worrying about getting the best possible Ability score array for their “build” and just have fun playing whatever floats their boat, even if it is a step behind optimized.
Hot take: there are absolutely wrong choices in D&D. Without wrong choices, there's also no right choices, and the entire game is about making enough right choices over wrong ones that eventually you get to a Good End instead of a Bad End.
Character generation is different than the core gameplay loop itself, but it's also part of the game. There's choices you can make during chargen that will make your game harder to play. Choices you can make that will close off more options than they open, choices you can make that will leave you much more vulnerable to Bad End. There are choices a player can make that will leave them a much slimmer margin for error than they might have otherwise had and require them to be much more on point during play. An experienced gamer/tabletop gamer/D&Der/whatever-your-title-of-choice-is can work with that. They know how to extract maximum value from even horrifically bad initial chargen choices and can make their impact felt regardless of those awful choices. Not everybody has those skills, though.
A character in a D&D game grew up in their world. They grew up learning how to survive and thrive, knowing the physics of their world and working within them. They will know what their strengths and weaknesses are, and moreover they will know what their strengths and weaknesses should be. They will know what gets people killed in their world, and what allows people to survive. Players deserve the same baseline knowledge, and they deserve to be allowed to play characters that do not require DM fiat to survive their first goblin cave. Mastery of the system and its underlying mechanics should be rewarded as much as mastery of the narrative and ability to act and embody a character, and to do that there needs to be right choices, wrong choices, and very different results stemming from each.
Those still aren’t “wrong” choices if that’s what your character would do, they’re only “wrong choices” if you’re trying to win D&D instead of play D&D. So your character dies. So what? So grieve a little, make a new character, and keep playing. The point isn’t to win, just to play.
Those still aren’t “wrong choices,” just not the most optimized. As a new player 29½ish years ago, it was such a relief to hear I couldn’t screw up my character. Did I make suboptimal choices? Yeah. Did it impact my enjoyment of the game? Heck no, I didn’t even notice them in the beginning. I trusted my friends and they didn’t steer me wrong.
And just as any one character grew up in that world, a player will too over the course of several characters until they also know how better to survive. It’s a process not unlike the one each character went through in their backstory. So your first few characters die, or struggle until you get the hang of it. So what? It only matters if you’re trying to win D&D instead of play D&D. If your goal is simply to play, there can be no wrong choices.
Hot take: there are absolutely wrong choices in D&D. Without wrong choices, there's also no right choices, and the entire game is about making enough right choices over wrong ones that eventually you get to a Good End instead of a Bad End.
Hot take: That’s the fundamental difference between your outlook on D&D and mine. There are no “wrong choices,” and the “right choice” is whatever you choose to do because the entire game is about having fun pretending to be a pseudomedieval superhero.
If you make your character in such a way that they don't exceed anyone at anything, then you're going to have a worse time. The assumption of the party structure is that everyone's a specialist at something. There needs to be some type of thing where people go, "ah, let's have Sposta handle this." Otherwise, you're a meat shield at best -- just a chump to take hits from traps and stuff, so the more valuable adventurers can stay in top shape for longer. And at worst, you're a drain on resources.
Are there exceptions to this? Yeah, of course there are. There are exceptions to everything.
If your whole group puts 14s in their class's main abilities, then you don't need to get a 16 in order to fill your role. But that's not how most groups play, I think. And I mean, it's not like this is somehow running against the game's intentions -- the rules literally say "put your highest ability score here, and your next highest here." Older PHBs said stuff like "most dwarves are fighters and clerics, and by the way they have CON and STR bonuses" or whatever they had.
If you make your character in such a way that they don't exceed anyone at anything, then you're going to have a worse time. The assumption of the party structure is that everyone's a specialist at something. There needs to be some type of thing where people go, "ah, let's have Sposta handle this." Otherwise, you're a meat shield at best -- just a chump to take hits from traps and stuff, so the more valuable adventurers can stay in top shape for longer. And at worst, you're a drain on resources.
Are there exceptions to this? Yeah, of course there are. There are exceptions to everything.
If your whole group puts 14s in their class's main abilities, then you don't need to get a 16 in order to fill your role. But that's not how most groups play, I think. And I mean, it's not like this is somehow running against the game's intentions -- the rules literally say "put your highest ability score here, and your next highest here." Older PHBs said stuff like "most dwarves are fighters and clerics, and by the way they have CON and STR bonuses" or whatever they had.
If you make your character in such a way that they don't exceed anyone at anything, then you're going to have a worse time. The assumption of the party structure is that everyone's a specialist at something. There needs to be some type of thing where people go, "ah, let's have Sposta handle this." Otherwise, you're a meat shield at best -- just a chump to take hits from traps and stuff, so the more valuable adventurers can stay in top shape for longer. And at worst, you're a drain on resources.
Are there exceptions to this? Yeah, of course there are. There are exceptions to everything.
If your whole group puts 14s in their class's main abilities, then you don't need to get a 16 in order to fill your role. But that's not how most groups play, I think. And I mean, it's not like this is somehow running against the game's intentions -- the rules literally say "put your highest ability score here, and your next highest here." Older PHBs said stuff like "most dwarves are fighters and clerics, and by the way they have CON and STR bonuses" or whatever they had.
Citation needed for that first paragraph, showing that playing less powerful imaginary characters has a correlation to having less real world fun. And if true, then why does anyone play Call of Cthulu or Paranoia (to give two examples) ? And these people (A Familiar Quest) playing as mere familiars must be absolutely miserable!
1) Remove the racial bonuses and instead place them into Backgrounds ala Advanced 5th Edition. This makes it less about ancestry (and the dubious ties to racism) and more about where the character focused their abilities.
2) Make a Magic Attribute. It is well past time that folks have a particular attribute dedicated to it rather than using Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma as a base, especially since magic works basically the same no matter which cast is casting the spell.
3) Healing magic for Wizards. If they can use negative energy they should be able to use positive energy. They will never be able to replace a Cleric in most situations, but more healing is always a good thing.
4) Orcs and Goblinoids as part of the Standard Races. I am utterly done with "enemy races".
5) A Psionic/Occult class as one of the base classes (if Warlock does not qualify). The 'Occult' part can get interesting, since it generally involves otherworldly forces that aren't usually consorted with and would fit the Warlock well. On the side of 'traversing the line between life and death' a Necromancer could also be an Occult class.
I’m sure someone has said this but take the +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 away from race, put it at level one when you select your class. So you choose to be a fighter and decide you want to be a Dex fighter. Put your 2 there and 1 wherever (INT if you planned on Eldritch Knight, etc).
You’re usually deciding on where to put them by the class you select so why include it in race at all, considering the direction they are going. It’s now just a class feature and not a race or background or whatever thing.
Definitely clean up the wording, clarify (implement SAC in the new PHB) etc
I’m sure someone has said this but take the +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 away from race, put it at level one when you select your class. So you choose to be a fighter and decide you want to be a Dex fighter. Put your 2 there and 1 wherever (INT if you planes on Eldritch Knight, etc).
You’re usually deciding on where to put them by the class you select so why include it in race at all, considering the direction they are going. It’s now just a class feature and not a race or background or whatever thing.
Definitely clean up the wording, clarify (implement SAC in the new PHB) etc
I agree, I think bonuses shouldn't be based off race. It limits what classes you can choose, just because you took a different race.
This way, you get to pick your characters race and not fret about it "not going well" with your class.
For example, if a newbie wants to play a wizard but likes being a half-orc, they should be to have intelligence bonuses instead of strength.
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1) "I focused my abilities & grew wings", as opposed to "I was born a Owlin"?
2) How do you balance that for non-magic users?
3) Take the most powerful class, and give it more?
4) There are lots of non-standard (PHB?) races that are not "enemy races", so not that I disagree on either point, just being technical, this feels like two distinct issues (Include Race X in the PHB / have Race X not be exclusively "the bad guys"). Also, Eberron.
5) 100% agree on a full Psi class. The rest feels like flavor or a Subclass at best (or whatever 6.X has for sub/prestige classes). What is the significant mechanical difference from existing classes?
That is objectively not true. There no race/class combinations not allowed in 5th Edition. If you chose to not play a particular combination, that is on you, not the rule set.
1) "I focused my abilities & grew wings", as opposed to "I was born a Owlin"?
2) How do you balance that for non-magic users?
3) Take the most powerful class, and give it more?
4) There are lots of non-standard (PHB?) races that are not "enemy races", so not that I disagree on either point, just being technical, this feels like two distinct issues (Include Race X in the PHB / have Race X not be exclusively "the bad guys"). Also, Eberron.
5) 100% agree on a full Psi class. The rest feels like flavor or a Subclass at best (or whatever 6.X has for sub/prestige classes). What is the significant mechanical difference from existing classes?
1) "I was a farmer so I have a lot of stamina." [Constitution] "I spent my time in the library." [Intelligence] "I was born in the bad part of town and learned to steal early on." [Dexterity] I suppose I should mention that being born with some feature (wings, special vision) isn't what I mean, only "all elves are naturally graceful" or similar which implies that the stats are somehow inherited. This sort of thing is unfortunately close to eugenics.
2) It could be the determiner for things like pools to accomplish special feats ala ki.
3) If you can explain to me why a Wizard would not research how to cast positive energy spells the way they do negative energy spells, I'd love to hear it.
4) Mostly my thought is that we've had both Half-Orcs and Half-Elves for some time in the PHB and while the Half-Elves get to have both parent races in the PHB and the Half-Orcs don't. It'd also be interesting to see what they come up with for culture and interactions.
5) There are different features between Clerics, Druids, and Wizards which makes them more than simple variants.
That is objectively not true. There no race/class combinations not allowed in 5th Edition. If you chose to not play a particular combination, that is on you, not the rule set.
That there are no race/class combos not allowed does not mean there's not some issues when choosing a particular combo. A race that gets a Wisdom bonus, for instance, would do much better to choose a class that would benefit from this than one that wouldn't and negative stats can really hinder someone in a class where that stat is fairly important. It's why I want stats to be in the backgrounds, so a person can basically choose what they want as a bonus.
That is objectively not true. There no race/class combinations not allowed in 5th Edition. If you chose to not play a particular combination, that is on you, not the rule set.
You are correct, but having ASI’s ties to race has its issues and for a brand new player who knows zero about the game they are not going to “play against type” because they don’t know what type is, but could accidentally “play against type” with fixed ASI’s and choosing a race/class combo that makes it a tiny bit harder.
Tasha’s helped with this, but putting the starting ASI’s as part of level 1 class selection helps remove the issue. If a new player picks an orc wizard and at level 1 wizard they get “Academic Training” that gives them the +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 to ability scores of their choice (and the “quick build” recommendations steer you to using one of those to INT ) it’s seems a better option than what we have now and the threads and threads of arguments. And it would be limited to character level one as part of class selection so there are no multiclassing shenanigans.
I guess I’m lucky because I didn’t have that experience. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I asked what the difference was between Int & Wis, etc., but I didn’t worry about making “the right choice” because my friends told me it didn’t really matter because in D&D there are no “wrong” choices so I should feel free to make my character with any combination of race and class I wanted. So I did and have never looked back. That’s part of why I don’t worry so much about building an optimized character, because there are no “wrong choices” in D&D. I wish more people could get that message and stop worrying about getting the best possible Ability score array for their “build” and just have fun playing whatever floats their boat, even if it is a step behind optimized.
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"I'm sure you asked, "What's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence?""
I will fully admit it was along those lines at first because they sound so similar in the fact they're mental based; this is why I love the tomato breakdown chart for understanding Stats...
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
😁
Still I don't see how hard it is to break the starting bonuses from Stats, it's just again saying "and now you can a + to a score"; if it's their first time playing surely you aren't going to drop the whole PHB on them so start by asking if you want melee or range and magic or no and then focus on the class you picked because all they'll first care on is which gives them biggest important number to be bad*ss in their class because they just want to feel like a hero the first time instead coming in for story more than not (I feel most start for the action rather than story anyways). This doesn't eliminate the need for pre-generated characters because they are the easiest way to get a game quickly going and show people what the mechanics can do, but if you want them to experience the game from the start by doing design then walk them through and say A or B and tree through the options from there. Stat bonuses matter more for class features than anything since the game is mainly combat focused and only recently has come more into embracing social play so a lot of character building really is A or B until you come to numbers and really that's just rolling and getting your base stats and then doing a simple 2 choice math on 2 numbers because if someone is walking you through it they'll tell you the two high numbers you need for the class you picked and again most are going to drop the bonuses into there thinking big numbers equal success not realizing yet it's more about your rolls than bonuses.
Maybe the 6e PHB should include the tomato chart for quick understanding lol.
"Adventures are generally skipped by anyone other than a collector or a DM."
You hurt me with the truth here! That said I really still want them to do more because the flip side of doing nothing is people become tired of playing the same stories over and over and while yes there is homebrew some DMs reach burn out faster doing all the work and no DMs mean no playing which means zero sells! Do you know how hard it is to find a DM first of all? Groups can't risk losing theirs. Maybe that's something Wizards should focus on next phase - making the DM aside as easy to get into as 5e has made the PHB to get into the game; if you aren't doing grand adventures do a lot of one shot material which can be plugged into big campaigns later but are also super new DM friendly so when one gets burned out a new person isn't so scared to step in for awhile.
Running a one shot your first time is a lot less stressful than doing a whole campagin off the bat unless you've been prepping this campaign world for awhile at home during other sessions ha.
"then best to just to do away with Racial ASIs completely"
I'm actually super fine with this Verenti; I've personally never understood bonuses being tied to race - why does an elf get +2 Dex? They're not more bendy than anyone else thin. Why does a half-elf get +2 to Charisma and +1 to two other stats but a half-orc only gets a +2 and a +1...shouldn't they have an extra plus +1 also as a half breed race? Why do humans get +1 to all abilities but all other races have set bonus limits and designations?!
If bonuses are going to have to be tied to something it should be class as Stats effect your skills and Skills are what you can do and what you need for the best class build. Again you can claim this maxes the builds depending on rolls but again like with races you'd have just set things and maxers are going to find a way to max if that's all they're really here for at the end of the day. To me it makes more sense a paladin or cleric would have a +2 to Strength from carrying around all that heavy armor over the years than it does a half-orc would have it just because they're a half-orc.
Biology is a factor but so is your life circumstances - a mountain dwarf living in the city who comes from an easy life for whatever background reason isn't going to be as strong as a mountain dwarf who loves and works in the mountains and thus exerts themselves more physically working each day so why would both get a +2 to Strength just because they're both mountain dwarves?
"Brute force of numbers shouldn't be your strategy for success."
I think that's sadly how most see it though because that's how we've been conditioned over the years - big numbers equal better chance to win and winning is good even though "winning" isn't suppose to be the focus of the game now. There's still a heavy seeming emphasis on combat so the more damage you can do the better your character in some people's mind even if they'd really have a better time building towards RP "wins" and enjoying the story. If you want big damage outputs only why not just play an old school fighting game?
Also big numbers don't guarantee success - an 18 with a +4 modifier especially at higher levels isn't going to do you any good when you keep rolling below 10 all night!
I like the umbrella analogy myself. Wisdom tells you it’s raining, Intelligence tells you to take an umbrella. 😉
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You may have gotten that backwards.
Wisdom (Perception) to notice the rain. Wisdom is all about noticing stuff (perception, insight, survival), Intelligence is all about knowing/deducing stuff (investigation, history, nature). I didn’t get it backwards, D&D did. 🤷♂️
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On the contrary. Knowing that the water falling from the sky is intelligence. It's understanding what the phenomenon is. Understanding how to use that knowledge (ala insight and survival) is Wisdom. Even in D&D.
I agree that’s how it should work, but that’s not how D&D is designed. And to prove I’m not just whistling Dixie over here:
So in D&D, it is quite literally a Wisdom check to notice it’s raining, and an Intelligence check to deduce that an umbrella would be prudent. 🤷♂️ I dunno what else to tell ya.
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Hot take: there are absolutely wrong choices in D&D. Without wrong choices, there's also no right choices, and the entire game is about making enough right choices over wrong ones that eventually you get to a Good End instead of a Bad End.
Character generation is different than the core gameplay loop itself, but it's also part of the game. There's choices you can make during chargen that will make your game harder to play. Choices you can make that will close off more options than they open, choices you can make that will leave you much more vulnerable to Bad End. There are choices a player can make that will leave them a much slimmer margin for error than they might have otherwise had and require them to be much more on point during play. An experienced gamer/tabletop gamer/D&Der/whatever-your-title-of-choice-is can work with that. They know how to extract maximum value from even horrifically bad initial chargen choices and can make their impact felt regardless of those awful choices. Not everybody has those skills, though.
A character in a D&D game grew up in their world. They grew up learning how to survive and thrive, knowing the physics of their world and working within them. They will know what their strengths and weaknesses are, and moreover they will know what their strengths and weaknesses should be. They will know what gets people killed in their world, and what allows people to survive. Players deserve the same baseline knowledge, and they deserve to be allowed to play characters that do not require DM fiat to survive their first goblin cave. Mastery of the system and its underlying mechanics should be rewarded as much as mastery of the narrative and ability to act and embody a character, and to do that there needs to be right choices, wrong choices, and very different results stemming from each.
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Hot take: That’s the fundamental difference between your outlook on D&D and mine. There are no “wrong choices,” and the “right choice” is whatever you choose to do because the entire game is about having fun pretending to be a pseudomedieval superhero.
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If you make your character in such a way that they don't exceed anyone at anything, then you're going to have a worse time. The assumption of the party structure is that everyone's a specialist at something. There needs to be some type of thing where people go, "ah, let's have Sposta handle this." Otherwise, you're a meat shield at best -- just a chump to take hits from traps and stuff, so the more valuable adventurers can stay in top shape for longer. And at worst, you're a drain on resources.
Are there exceptions to this? Yeah, of course there are. There are exceptions to everything.
If your whole group puts 14s in their class's main abilities, then you don't need to get a 16 in order to fill your role. But that's not how most groups play, I think. And I mean, it's not like this is somehow running against the game's intentions -- the rules literally say "put your highest ability score here, and your next highest here." Older PHBs said stuff like "most dwarves are fighters and clerics, and by the way they have CON and STR bonuses" or whatever they had.
It’s that exact mentality that leads people to believe that this is an “inferior” character: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/39537642), or this: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/66398525), or this: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/69372165), or this (https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/34692640), or this: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/71810843); yet not one of them is. They may not be optimized, but they aren’t chump meatshields who put a drain on their parties either.
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Citation needed for that first paragraph, showing that playing less powerful imaginary characters has a correlation to having less real world fun. And if true, then why does anyone play Call of Cthulu or Paranoia (to give two examples) ? And these people (A Familiar Quest) playing as mere familiars must be absolutely miserable!
1) Remove the racial bonuses and instead place them into Backgrounds ala Advanced 5th Edition. This makes it less about ancestry (and the dubious ties to racism) and more about where the character focused their abilities.
2) Make a Magic Attribute. It is well past time that folks have a particular attribute dedicated to it rather than using Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma as a base, especially since magic works basically the same no matter which cast is casting the spell.
3) Healing magic for Wizards. If they can use negative energy they should be able to use positive energy. They will never be able to replace a Cleric in most situations, but more healing is always a good thing.
4) Orcs and Goblinoids as part of the Standard Races. I am utterly done with "enemy races".
5) A Psionic/Occult class as one of the base classes (if Warlock does not qualify). The 'Occult' part can get interesting, since it generally involves otherworldly forces that aren't usually consorted with and would fit the Warlock well. On the side of 'traversing the line between life and death' a Necromancer could also be an Occult class.
I’m sure someone has said this but take the +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 away from race, put it at level one when you select your class. So you choose to be a fighter and decide you want to be a Dex fighter. Put your 2 there and 1 wherever (INT if you planned on Eldritch Knight, etc).
You’re usually deciding on where to put them by the class you select so why include it in race at all, considering the direction they are going. It’s now just a class feature and not a race or background or whatever thing.
Definitely clean up the wording, clarify (implement SAC in the new PHB) etc
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I agree, I think bonuses shouldn't be based off race. It limits what classes you can choose, just because you took a different race.
This way, you get to pick your characters race and not fret about it "not going well" with your class.
For example, if a newbie wants to play a wizard but likes being a half-orc, they should be to have intelligence bonuses instead of strength.
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HERE.1) "I focused my abilities & grew wings", as opposed to "I was born a Owlin"?
2) How do you balance that for non-magic users?
3) Take the most powerful class, and give it more?
4) There are lots of non-standard (PHB?) races that are not "enemy races", so not that I disagree on either point, just being technical, this feels like two distinct issues (Include Race X in the PHB / have Race X not be exclusively "the bad guys"). Also, Eberron.
5) 100% agree on a full Psi class. The rest feels like flavor or a Subclass at best (or whatever 6.X has for sub/prestige classes). What is the significant mechanical difference from existing classes?
That is objectively not true. There no race/class combinations not allowed in 5th Edition. If you chose to not play a particular combination, that is on you, not the rule set.
1) "I was a farmer so I have a lot of stamina." [Constitution] "I spent my time in the library." [Intelligence] "I was born in the bad part of town and learned to steal early on." [Dexterity] I suppose I should mention that being born with some feature (wings, special vision) isn't what I mean, only "all elves are naturally graceful" or similar which implies that the stats are somehow inherited. This sort of thing is unfortunately close to eugenics.
2) It could be the determiner for things like pools to accomplish special feats ala ki.
3) If you can explain to me why a Wizard would not research how to cast positive energy spells the way they do negative energy spells, I'd love to hear it.
4) Mostly my thought is that we've had both Half-Orcs and Half-Elves for some time in the PHB and while the Half-Elves get to have both parent races in the PHB and the Half-Orcs don't. It'd also be interesting to see what they come up with for culture and interactions.
5) There are different features between Clerics, Druids, and Wizards which makes them more than simple variants.
That there are no race/class combos not allowed does not mean there's not some issues when choosing a particular combo. A race that gets a Wisdom bonus, for instance, would do much better to choose a class that would benefit from this than one that wouldn't and negative stats can really hinder someone in a class where that stat is fairly important. It's why I want stats to be in the backgrounds, so a person can basically choose what they want as a bonus.
You are correct, but having ASI’s ties to race has its issues and for a brand new player who knows zero about the game they are not going to “play against type” because they don’t know what type is, but could accidentally “play against type” with fixed ASI’s and choosing a race/class combo that makes it a tiny bit harder.
Tasha’s helped with this, but putting the starting ASI’s as part of level 1 class selection helps remove the issue. If a new player picks an orc wizard and at level 1 wizard they get “Academic Training” that gives them the +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 to ability scores of their choice (and the “quick build” recommendations steer you to using one of those to INT ) it’s seems a better option than what we have now and the threads and threads of arguments. And it would be limited to character level one as part of class selection so there are no multiclassing shenanigans.
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