It is possible, MetaPigeon, to have a cool story idea you want to play but to also want to have a character that is not an anchor on the party. A goliath wizard, by default rules, is mostly just a mistake. You can play it, sure - but unless you rolled Heroic stats and have a giant number to put in Intelligence, that goliath is categorically worse than a wizard of any race with a point of Intelligence. The goliath's extra Strength and Powerful Build do not somehow 'even out' the character being decidedly terrible at her primary task, which is wizarding.
Some folks like being bad at their jobs, and consider it a way to enhance their story - they like playing the underdog and having to struggle for success. That's great. They can absolutely do that and retain their normal species bonuses, even going so far as to avoid placing a high score in their key stat to really just suck crazy hard at their job. Provided their friends are willing to deal with their wizard being an absolutely godawful wizard, that's a cool story to tell.
But again. Some people want to play the exceptions. Some people want to play the goliath who was exiled from her clan because she was too weak to make it in the mountains, but found a new purpose when she was recovered - half starved and raving from exposure - by an expedition from a nearby human city to try and discover the secrets of a lost tomb in the foothills. Her body was weak but her mind was strong, and she took to her new role with zeal. That's a story you really can't tell with the current system outside of Heroic stats, because goliaths will always be terrible wizards.
Why not expand our options and let people tell more stories, not fewer?
False. A goliath wizard by default rules is not a mistake, it’s a choice, perhaps an exception, but still completely workable considering you can still roll an 18, which isn’t even necessary for a workable wizard. If you want your goliath to be weaker than the norm, make strength your dump stat. But it’s not unreasonable to say that even a greatly weakened goliath will still be stronger than a normal gnome. It doesn’t stop you from telling the same story you mentioned. Not in the slightest.
Playing a race that doesn’t have a bonus to intelligence does not hamper your ability to play a wizard. Most of the races don’t have penalties. Playing one that did would make it a heroic exception.
It is possible, MetaPigeon, to have a cool story idea you want to play but to also want to have a character that is not an anchor on the party. A goliath wizard, by default rules, is mostly just a mistake. You can play it, sure - but unless you rolled Heroic stats and have a giant number to put in Intelligence, that goliath is categorically worse than a wizard of any race with a point of Intelligence. The goliath's extra Strength and Powerful Build do not somehow 'even out' the character being decidedly terrible at her primary task, which is wizarding.
Some folks like being bad at their jobs, and consider it a way to enhance their story - they like playing the underdog and having to struggle for success. That's great. They can absolutely do that and retain their normal species bonuses, even going so far as to avoid placing a high score in their key stat to really just suck crazy hard at their job. Provided their friends are willing to deal with their wizard being an absolutely godawful wizard, that's a cool story to tell.
But again. Some people want to play the exceptions. Some people want to play the goliath who was exiled from her clan because she was too weak to make it in the mountains, but found a new purpose when she was recovered - half starved and raving from exposure - by an expedition from a nearby human city to try and discover the secrets of a lost tomb in the foothills. Her body was weak but her mind was strong, and she took to her new role with zeal. That's a story you really can't tell with the current system outside of Heroic stats, because goliaths will always be terrible wizards.
Why not expand our options and let people tell more stories, not fewer?
And Jasper? If you're DMing for Adventurer's League, you know bloody well what you signed up for and have no complaints coming. You want control over the game you run? Heh, run real D&D, not Adventurer's League.
I see where you're coming from but I'm with pigeon on this one.
It has nothing to do with expanding options to tell more stories. It's a mentality of pandering a bit to the "give everyone a ribbon" sort of thing. The most interesting character choices, in video games, on screen, tabletop games, and life are those with a more give and take and sacrifice. For your Goliath story, sacrifice Intelligence. An option where you no longer have to does indeed water it down.
It felt like a, "I ain't broke, don't fix it sort of thing". With ASI's you can go any direction you want. At char creation, are you really telling me that choosing a Goliath Wizard (0 Int bonus) is significantly weaker, suckier, and worse than a Gnome Wizard with (+2 Int). Does the +1 stat bonus change the game so much that one wizard is "filling the role nicely" while the other is "an anchor on the party that the rest of the group has to tolerate."
+1 modifier to a stat changes the flow, rhythm, pacing that much huh? Was there something in the rules, as I've said, that prohibits Goliaths from always taking Int increases every ASI? If
Oh and what does "real D&D" look like?
You don't understand the reason for the changes at all. Like not one bit.
The issue with the stats is that it is similar to how people apply racism, especially in the old days when they were categorizing races during the exploration of the british empire.
Lets make the nice white blond elves smart and beautiful. Lets make the ugly dark skilled "humanoids" or mongoloids (as in not us white folk) dumb.
This is false. There is one race that has an intelligence penalty and it’s been corrected in two books so you don’t even have to be saddled with that problem.
And here I thought I made a specific exception for rolling Heroic stats, which obviously allow anyone to play whatever they like. If you roll up an 85-point array with no score lower than twelve, then you can clearly do whatever you heckin' like and it'll work out fine because you're six ASIs stronger than the game is expecting you to be.
If, however, you did not roll a Heroic array, or if you're playing a game where the DM insists on Standard Array? You're kinda hosed if you don't line everything up just right. That sucks. So Wizards decided to do something about it. Why is it so awful that Wizards decided to do something about it? Gnomes can already have a higher Strength score than goliaths, because PCs are rule-breakers. Why do we keep having to justify this idea that PCs break the rules?
It is possible, MetaPigeon, to have a cool story idea you want to play but to also want to have a character that is not an anchor on the party. A goliath wizard, by default rules, is mostly just a mistake. You can play it, sure - but unless you rolled Heroic stats and have a giant number to put in Intelligence, that goliath is categorically worse than a wizard of any race with a point of Intelligence. The goliath's extra Strength and Powerful Build do not somehow 'even out' the character being decidedly terrible at her primary task, which is wizarding.
Some folks like being bad at their jobs, and consider it a way to enhance their story - they like playing the underdog and having to struggle for success. That's great. They can absolutely do that and retain their normal species bonuses, even going so far as to avoid placing a high score in their key stat to really just suck crazy hard at their job. Provided their friends are willing to deal with their wizard being an absolutely godawful wizard, that's a cool story to tell.
But again. Some people want to play the exceptions. Some people want to play the goliath who was exiled from her clan because she was too weak to make it in the mountains, but found a new purpose when she was recovered - half starved and raving from exposure - by an expedition from a nearby human city to try and discover the secrets of a lost tomb in the foothills. Her body was weak but her mind was strong, and she took to her new role with zeal. That's a story you really can't tell with the current system outside of Heroic stats, because goliaths will always be terrible wizards.
Why not expand our options and let people tell more stories, not fewer?
And Jasper? If you're DMing for Adventurer's League, you know bloody well what you signed up for and have no complaints coming. You want control over the game you run? Heh, run real D&D, not Adventurer's League.
I see where you're coming from but I'm with pigeon on this one.
It has nothing to do with expanding options to tell more stories. It's a mentality of pandering a bit to the "give everyone a ribbon" sort of thing. The most interesting character choices, in video games, on screen, tabletop games, and life are those with a more give and take and sacrifice. For your Goliath story, sacrifice Intelligence. An option where you no longer have to does indeed water it down.
It felt like a, "I ain't broke, don't fix it sort of thing". With ASI's you can go any direction you want. At char creation, are you really telling me that choosing a Goliath Wizard (0 Int bonus) is significantly weaker, suckier, and worse than a Gnome Wizard with (+2 Int). Does the +1 stat bonus change the game so much that one wizard is "filling the role nicely" while the other is "an anchor on the party that the rest of the group has to tolerate."
+1 modifier to a stat changes the flow, rhythm, pacing that much huh? Was there something in the rules, as I've said, that prohibits Goliaths from always taking Int increases every ASI? If
Oh and what does "real D&D" look like?
You don't understand the reason for the changes at all. Like not one bit.
The issue with the stats is that it is similar to how people apply racism....
I think I understand it well. I simply don't attach racism to any part of my D&D game, books, or otherwise. You look into it more than it is and I don't. That doesn't mean I have less "understanding" of it.
.... And Jasper? If you're DMing for Adventurer's League, you know bloody well what you signed up for and have no complaints coming. You want control over the game you run? Heh, run real D&D, not Adventurer's League.
Hmm been playing real D&D since August 1980. I think I have dice older than you.
It really does read like people are specifically asking folks who're interested in playing 'off-meta' species/class combinations to suffer for their stories. That if they're not willing to eat being bad at their class, they shouldn't get to explore nontraditional stories. I am legitimately confused as to why this should be, and if people are really so convinced that three points of ability bonus is the only possible thing that differentiates species from one another?
No offense, but that’s as dumb an argument as complaining that you want to play a Halfling but still want to be 6-foot tall.
Heh. To be fair, Sposta? While that one would involve some homebrew, I could see there being a fun story in playing a halfling afflicted with genetic gigantism. He's spent his entire life being ridiculed and feeling out of place and excluded because of his size, and has the worst time explaining that to other people because they see a five-foot-four lanky dude and go "So...what? Dude, you're not tall. You're honestly kind of a shrimp..." because they mistake him for a hairier-than-typical human rather than a grossly outsized halfling.
It is possible, MetaPigeon, to have a cool story idea you want to play but to also want to have a character that is not an anchor on the party. A goliath wizard, by default rules, is mostly just a mistake. You can play it, sure - but unless you rolled Heroic stats and have a giant number to put in Intelligence, that goliath is categorically worse than a wizard of any race with a point of Intelligence. The goliath's extra Strength and Powerful Build do not somehow 'even out' the character being decidedly terrible at her primary task, which is wizarding.
Some folks like being bad at their jobs, and consider it a way to enhance their story - they like playing the underdog and having to struggle for success. That's great. They can absolutely do that and retain their normal species bonuses, even going so far as to avoid placing a high score in their key stat to really just suck crazy hard at their job. Provided their friends are willing to deal with their wizard being an absolutely godawful wizard, that's a cool story to tell.
But again. Some people want to play the exceptions. Some people want to play the goliath who was exiled from her clan because she was too weak to make it in the mountains, but found a new purpose when she was recovered - half starved and raving from exposure - by an expedition from a nearby human city to try and discover the secrets of a lost tomb in the foothills. Her body was weak but her mind was strong, and she took to her new role with zeal. That's a story you really can't tell with the current system outside of Heroic stats, because goliaths will always be terrible wizards.
Why not expand our options and let people tell more stories, not fewer?
And Jasper? If you're DMing for Adventurer's League, you know bloody well what you signed up for and have no complaints coming. You want control over the game you run? Heh, run real D&D, not Adventurer's League.
I see where you're coming from but I'm with pigeon on this one.
It has nothing to do with expanding options to tell more stories. It's a mentality of pandering a bit to the "give everyone a ribbon" sort of thing. The most interesting character choices, in video games, on screen, tabletop games, and life are those with a more give and take and sacrifice. For your Goliath story, sacrifice Intelligence. An option where you no longer have to does indeed water it down.
It felt like a, "I ain't broke, don't fix it sort of thing". With ASI's you can go any direction you want. At char creation, are you really telling me that choosing a Goliath Wizard (0 Int bonus) is significantly weaker, suckier, and worse than a Gnome Wizard with (+2 Int). Does the +1 stat bonus change the game so much that one wizard is "filling the role nicely" while the other is "an anchor on the party that the rest of the group has to tolerate."
+1 modifier to a stat changes the flow, rhythm, pacing that much huh? Was there something in the rules, as I've said, that prohibits Goliaths from always taking Int increases every ASI? If
Oh and what does "real D&D" look like?
You don't understand the reason for the changes at all. Like not one bit.
The issue with the stats is that it is similar to how people apply racism, especially in the old days when they were categorizing races during the exploration of the british empire.
Lets make the nice white blond elves smart and beautiful. Lets make the ugly dark skilled "humanoids" or mongoloids (as in not us white folk) dumb.
This is false. There is one race that has an intelligence penalty and it’s been corrected in two books so you don’t even have to be saddled with that problem.
You referring to people of orcs ? -2 int in my dmg, didn't receive the letter to change it.
Heroes are being created that defy anything remotely close to "normal", no reason to point buy and say the smartest orc wizard possible was 13 while the smartest level 1 elf was 16.
I dont see why you care so much to hang on to picking a race defines your ability maximums.
And here I thought I made a specific exception for rolling Heroic stats, which obviously allow anyone to play whatever they like. If you roll up an 85-point array with no score lower than twelve, then you can clearly do whatever you heckin' like and it'll work out fine because you're six ASIs stronger than the game is expecting you to be.
If, however, you did not roll a Heroic array, or if you're playing a game where the DM insists on Standard Array? You're kinda hosed if you don't line everything up just right. That sucks. So Wizards decided to do something about it. Why is it so awful that Wizards decided to do something about it? Gnomes can already have a higher Strength score than goliaths, because PCs are rule-breakers. Why do we keep having to justify this idea that PCs break the rules?
Because that’s not written anywhere. Who says PCs are rule breakers? And if they are, how can they break rules if those rules have been removed?
Every character still has ASI's to use so you can have a 20 int Goliath, it will just a little longer than with a different race/species. Each race has it's strengths and weaknesses, like darkvision, speed, size, resistances, ability scores, etc and it's not a bad thing. You could be a weaker goliath which is why you went with wizard for your story, but you will still be strong compared to a weak gnome. This isn't like the old days where there is a cap on the race you pick, just on the bonus at the start. You really have to mess up to have an anchor character in 5e, I mean really mess up like put your rolls in the completely wrong area for ability scores. I don't see how you couldn't max out a main ability score in at most 2 ASI's no matter what race you choose so the starting point doesn't really matter. Seems just like fixing something that doesn't need fixing and making things more vanilla.
It is possible, MetaPigeon, to have a cool story idea you want to play but to also want to have a character that is not an anchor on the party. A goliath wizard, by default rules, is mostly just a mistake. You can play it, sure - but unless you rolled Heroic stats and have a giant number to put in Intelligence, that goliath is categorically worse than a wizard of any race with a point of Intelligence. The goliath's extra Strength and Powerful Build do not somehow 'even out' the character being decidedly terrible at her primary task, which is wizarding.
Some folks like being bad at their jobs, and consider it a way to enhance their story - they like playing the underdog and having to struggle for success. That's great. They can absolutely do that and retain their normal species bonuses, even going so far as to avoid placing a high score in their key stat to really just suck crazy hard at their job. Provided their friends are willing to deal with their wizard being an absolutely godawful wizard, that's a cool story to tell.
But again. Some people want to play the exceptions. Some people want to play the goliath who was exiled from her clan because she was too weak to make it in the mountains, but found a new purpose when she was recovered - half starved and raving from exposure - by an expedition from a nearby human city to try and discover the secrets of a lost tomb in the foothills. Her body was weak but her mind was strong, and she took to her new role with zeal. That's a story you really can't tell with the current system outside of Heroic stats, because goliaths will always be terrible wizards.
Why not expand our options and let people tell more stories, not fewer?
And Jasper? If you're DMing for Adventurer's League, you know bloody well what you signed up for and have no complaints coming. You want control over the game you run? Heh, run real D&D, not Adventurer's League.
I see where you're coming from but I'm with pigeon on this one.
It has nothing to do with expanding options to tell more stories. It's a mentality of pandering a bit to the "give everyone a ribbon" sort of thing. The most interesting character choices, in video games, on screen, tabletop games, and life are those with a more give and take and sacrifice. For your Goliath story, sacrifice Intelligence. An option where you no longer have to does indeed water it down.
It felt like a, "I ain't broke, don't fix it sort of thing". With ASI's you can go any direction you want. At char creation, are you really telling me that choosing a Goliath Wizard (0 Int bonus) is significantly weaker, suckier, and worse than a Gnome Wizard with (+2 Int). Does the +1 stat bonus change the game so much that one wizard is "filling the role nicely" while the other is "an anchor on the party that the rest of the group has to tolerate."
+1 modifier to a stat changes the flow, rhythm, pacing that much huh? Was there something in the rules, as I've said, that prohibits Goliaths from always taking Int increases every ASI? If
Oh and what does "real D&D" look like?
You don't understand the reason for the changes at all. Like not one bit.
The issue with the stats is that it is similar to how people apply racism, especially in the old days when they were categorizing races during the exploration of the british empire.
Lets make the nice white blond elves smart and beautiful. Lets make the ugly dark skilled "humanoids" or mongoloids (as in not us white folk) dumb.
This is false. There is one race that has an intelligence penalty and it’s been corrected in two books so you don’t even have to be saddled with that problem.
You referring to people of orcs ? -2 int in my dmg, didn't receive the letter to change it.
Heroes are being created that defy anything remotely close to "normal", no reason to point buy and say the smartest orc wizard possible was 13 while the smartest level 1 elf was 16.
I dont see why you care so much to hang on to picking a race defines your ability maximums.
It’s in two different books. There is a reason. Biologically they are two different species with different capabilities. If we are going to ignore that than all the other racial qualities need to be gotten rid of as well. No dark vision because it doesn’t make sense that certain humanoids can see at night or underground, no powerful build because some individuals are weaker than others, no stealth bonus because some halflings might be clumsy or just not come from a Shire that values sneaking through their farmland.
I care so much because those kinds of choices add to the story. If everyone can just have the same bonus regardless of your background choices, then the backgrounds don’t really mean anything at all. You won’t be heroic. You’ll be just like the 20 other orc PCs that decided to put their ability bonus in their intelligence stat.
It is possible, MetaPigeon, to have a cool story idea you want to play but to also want to have a character that is not an anchor on the party. A goliath wizard, by default rules, is mostly just a mistake. You can play it, sure - but unless you rolled Heroic stats and have a giant number to put in Intelligence, that goliath is categorically worse than a wizard of any race with a point of Intelligence. The goliath's extra Strength and Powerful Build do not somehow 'even out' the character being decidedly terrible at her primary task, which is wizarding.
Some folks like being bad at their jobs, and consider it a way to enhance their story - they like playing the underdog and having to struggle for success. That's great. They can absolutely do that and retain their normal species bonuses, even going so far as to avoid placing a high score in their key stat to really just suck crazy hard at their job. Provided their friends are willing to deal with their wizard being an absolutely godawful wizard, that's a cool story to tell.
But again. Some people want to play the exceptions. Some people want to play the goliath who was exiled from her clan because she was too weak to make it in the mountains, but found a new purpose when she was recovered - half starved and raving from exposure - by an expedition from a nearby human city to try and discover the secrets of a lost tomb in the foothills. Her body was weak but her mind was strong, and she took to her new role with zeal. That's a story you really can't tell with the current system outside of Heroic stats, because goliaths will always be terrible wizards.
Why not expand our options and let people tell more stories, not fewer?
And Jasper? If you're DMing for Adventurer's League, you know bloody well what you signed up for and have no complaints coming. You want control over the game you run? Heh, run real D&D, not Adventurer's League.
I see where you're coming from but I'm with pigeon on this one.
It has nothing to do with expanding options to tell more stories. It's a mentality of pandering a bit to the "give everyone a ribbon" sort of thing. The most interesting character choices, in video games, on screen, tabletop games, and life are those with a more give and take and sacrifice. For your Goliath story, sacrifice Intelligence. An option where you no longer have to does indeed water it down.
It felt like a, "I ain't broke, don't fix it sort of thing". With ASI's you can go any direction you want. At char creation, are you really telling me that choosing a Goliath Wizard (0 Int bonus) is significantly weaker, suckier, and worse than a Gnome Wizard with (+2 Int). Does the +1 stat bonus change the game so much that one wizard is "filling the role nicely" while the other is "an anchor on the party that the rest of the group has to tolerate."
+1 modifier to a stat changes the flow, rhythm, pacing that much huh? Was there something in the rules, as I've said, that prohibits Goliaths from always taking Int increases every ASI? If
Oh and what does "real D&D" look like?
You don't understand the reason for the changes at all. Like not one bit.
The issue with the stats is that it is similar to how people apply racism, especially in the old days when they were categorizing races during the exploration of the british empire.
Lets make the nice white blond elves smart and beautiful. Lets make the ugly dark skilled "humanoids" or mongoloids (as in not us white folk) dumb.
This is false. There is one race that has an intelligence penalty and it’s been corrected in two books so you don’t even have to be saddled with that problem.
You referring to people of orcs ? -2 int in my dmg, didn't receive the letter to change it.
Heroes are being created that defy anything remotely close to "normal", no reason to point buy and say the smartest orc wizard possible was 13 while the smartest level 1 elf was 16.
I dont see why you care so much to hang on to picking a race defines your ability maximums.
It’s in two different books. There is a reason. Biologically they are two different species with different capabilities. If we are going to ignore that than all the other racial qualities need to be gotten rid of as well. No dark vision because it doesn’t make sense that certain humanoids can see at night or underground, no powerful build because some individuals are weaker than others, no stealth bonus because some halflings might be clumsy or just not come from a Shire that values sneaking through their farmland.
I care so much because those kinds of choices add to the story. If everyone can just have the same bonus regardless of your background choices, then the backgrounds don’t really mean anything at all. You won’t be heroic. You’ll be just like the 20 other orc PCs that decided to put their ability bonus in their intelligence stat.
biology huh. some races just don't have good enough breeding is what you are saying. nobody is changing your perception of how smart, dextrous a race is. Its about being able to make an individual that is different from the normal. what you have is MORE restrictive. People should be able to put bonuses where they want based on what their PERSONAL BACKGROUND is, not based on what the avg species looks like.
My opinion: If the system added for choosing ability scores is balanced, I will allow it, but if not, I will not allow it. Personally I understand why this option should be added, and why some people think it shouldn’t. I side a little bit on the side of it should be added as an optional rule. Personally I am more worried about people gonna try to exploit the new system to Min Max the fudge out of their characters.
I do think my only con with this rule is that story may suffer a small bit if the players exploit the system in odd ways, and unless DMs really enforce stuff in world building, it wouldn’t seem like a special thing at all to play an unusual race/class when there are people who mass invest in stats that are entirely different than what the race/class combo is good for.
This new system may also unbalance the races. Like some of them are more focused on special stuff you get that are not ability scores. Depending on how the system is implemented, it may make more non ability score based races way stronger and unbalance the game.
Overall I am cautiously excited for the new system, but if it’s unbalanced, then I YEET it out of my games, but if it’s balanced, I’ll embrace it.
Heh. To be fair, Sposta? While that one would involve some homebrew, I could see there being a fun story in playing a halfling afflicted with genetic gigantism. He's spent his entire life being ridiculed and feeling out of place and excluded because of his size, and has the worst time explaining that to other people because they see a five-foot-four lanky dude and go "So...what? Dude, you're not tall. You're honestly kind of a shrimp..." because they mistake him for a hairier-than-typical human rather than a grossly outsized halfling.
Man, that would be a crazy headspace to explore.
No homebrew required. There are already rules for a 6-foot tall Halfling. They’re called humans.
As someone that plays a not only a goliath wizard, but also a half-orc wizard*, I will say that I don't need a homogeneous starting position (e.g. all races have same starting stats) to either feel effective or useful to a group.
I will also say that I will find it rather boring if that is the published optional solution. Sure, PCs are heros but there should be no way a starting gnome hero is just as strong as the strongest starting goliath hero. It just doesnt make sense, stains credulity (yes, even in a fantasy setting), and both cheapens the experience and general flavor of the species.
What good is a lot of the various species lore if, as one poster stated, you are just a reskinned human in gnome/goliath garb?
That being stated, I reskin things often. My tiefling is a dwarven assimar that became a tiefling during the fall of Azriel. Stats of a tiefling; appearance, general demeanor and age of a dwarf. My warlock's familiar is weasel reskinned to look like a squirrel.
Seems like the easiest option rule would be to allow for DMs to reskin the races/species; as they already can, but in a more official optional capacity.
*My favorite character of all time, and the one this account is named after, Was a halfing fighter from Everquest 1 that I turned into two-weapon halfling fighter in 2.0/3.0 dnd. Eithet 3.0 or 3.5 changed the rules on me, I dont remember which, and it completely ruined my character concept so I had to recreate the charcter as a dwarf.
*My favorite character of all time, and the one this account is named after, Was a halfing fighter from Everquest 1 that I turned into two-weapon halfling fighter in 2.0/3.0 dnd. Eithet 3.0 or 3.5 changed the rules on me, I dont remember which, and it completely ruined my character concept so I had to recreate the charcter as a dwarf.
So being able to customize races would have been an improvement...
A thing to bear in mind about this is: the DM can still decide what characters they're willing to accept in the game. The question is really whether the DM wants to apply an unusual character concept tax.
It is possible, MetaPigeon, to have a cool story idea you want to play but to also want to have a character that is not an anchor on the party. A goliath wizard, by default rules, is mostly just a mistake. You can play it, sure - but unless you rolled Heroic stats and have a giant number to put in Intelligence, that goliath is categorically worse than a wizard of any race with a point of Intelligence. The goliath's extra Strength and Powerful Build do not somehow 'even out' the character being decidedly terrible at her primary task, which is wizarding.
Some folks like being bad at their jobs, and consider it a way to enhance their story - they like playing the underdog and having to struggle for success. That's great. They can absolutely do that and retain their normal species bonuses, even going so far as to avoid placing a high score in their key stat to really just suck crazy hard at their job. Provided their friends are willing to deal with their wizard being an absolutely godawful wizard, that's a cool story to tell.
But again. Some people want to play the exceptions. Some people want to play the goliath who was exiled from her clan because she was too weak to make it in the mountains, but found a new purpose when she was recovered - half starved and raving from exposure - by an expedition from a nearby human city to try and discover the secrets of a lost tomb in the foothills. Her body was weak but her mind was strong, and she took to her new role with zeal. That's a story you really can't tell with the current system outside of Heroic stats, because goliaths will always be terrible wizards.
Why not expand our options and let people tell more stories, not fewer?
And Jasper? If you're DMing for Adventurer's League, you know bloody well what you signed up for and have no complaints coming. You want control over the game you run? Heh, run real D&D, not Adventurer's League.
I see where you're coming from but I'm with pigeon on this one.
It has nothing to do with expanding options to tell more stories. It's a mentality of pandering a bit to the "give everyone a ribbon" sort of thing. The most interesting character choices, in video games, on screen, tabletop games, and life are those with a more give and take and sacrifice. For your Goliath story, sacrifice Intelligence. An option where you no longer have to does indeed water it down.
It felt like a, "I ain't broke, don't fix it sort of thing". With ASI's you can go any direction you want. At char creation, are you really telling me that choosing a Goliath Wizard (0 Int bonus) is significantly weaker, suckier, and worse than a Gnome Wizard with (+2 Int). Does the +1 stat bonus change the game so much that one wizard is "filling the role nicely" while the other is "an anchor on the party that the rest of the group has to tolerate."
+1 modifier to a stat changes the flow, rhythm, pacing that much huh? Was there something in the rules, as I've said, that prohibits Goliaths from always taking Int increases every ASI? If
Oh and what does "real D&D" look like?
You don't understand the reason for the changes at all. Like not one bit.
The issue with the stats is that it is similar to how people apply racism, especially in the old days when they were categorizing races during the exploration of the british empire.
Lets make the nice white blond elves smart and beautiful. Lets make the ugly dark skilled "humanoids" or mongoloids (as in not us white folk) dumb.
This is false. There is one race that has an intelligence penalty and it’s been corrected in two books so you don’t even have to be saddled with that problem.
You referring to people of orcs ? -2 int in my dmg, didn't receive the letter to change it.
Heroes are being created that defy anything remotely close to "normal", no reason to point buy and say the smartest orc wizard possible was 13 while the smartest level 1 elf was 16.
I dont see why you care so much to hang on to picking a race defines your ability maximums.
It’s in two different books. There is a reason. Biologically they are two different species with different capabilities. If we are going to ignore that than all the other racial qualities need to be gotten rid of as well. No dark vision because it doesn’t make sense that certain humanoids can see at night or underground, no powerful build because some individuals are weaker than others, no stealth bonus because some halflings might be clumsy or just not come from a Shire that values sneaking through their farmland.
I care so much because those kinds of choices add to the story. If everyone can just have the same bonus regardless of your background choices, then the backgrounds don’t really mean anything at all. You won’t be heroic. You’ll be just like the 20 other orc PCs that decided to put their ability bonus in their intelligence stat.
biology huh. some races just don't have good enough breeding is what you are saying. nobody is changing your perception of how smart, dextrous a race is.
It's not about race. Elves, humans and orcs, etc are different species..
Different species have different inherent attributes that have nothing to do with breeding or background. That's why a gorilla is stronger than a mouse, and will always be.
*My favorite character of all time, and the one this account is named after, Was a halfing fighter from Everquest 1 that I turned into two-weapon halfling fighter in 2.0/3.0 dnd. Eithet 3.0 or 3.5 changed the rules on me, I dont remember which, and it completely ruined my character concept so I had to recreate the charcter as a dwarf.
So being able to customize races would have been an improvement...
Actually no.
It was a core class feature, not a change in how stats were determined that killed my character concept. Certain races were given small size and of course size restrictions based on such. In hindisght, I probably could have asked for my new dwarf to simply look like a halfling. The backstory remained largely the same.
If size restrictions are removed, then the game likely will have a very fundamental change requiring further rewrites since size has both pros and cons.
guys can everyone just shut the **** about the darn abillity scores, they do not matter, its not important, what is important is those otherabillities. is it gonna be like that old 2e rulebook "skills and powers" where each race had an long list of unique benefits and a set of points you could choose to aquire those racial abillities and you could buy all the abillities like the bow bonuses and their trance and the spellcasting of the drow and the special abillity boosts and an familliar thingie all sepperately, where an dwarf could get to have their racial package focus on mining and apprasing objects and examining stonework and other civilian stuff or may use their abillities to improve their combat abillities?
Will it instead be an set of replacement features for every class feature that is considered "cultural", ie we get to replace stonecunning, dwarven combat training, artificer's lore etc with other equally strong racial features, possibly getting to exchange cultural features for other cultural features of the same power level. Will we get to freely alter the spellcasting gained by the tiefling and genasi to more closely align them with our character concepts and whatever fiendish entity spawned them? Will i get to weaken the horns of my minoraur to gain actiually useful features, perhaps even labyrinthine recall and keen smell instead, possibly even training with the axe? Will it be like pathfinder, where half-orc fighters can all make for a pretty diverse and well balanced team? Will i finally be able to play a race that gets an free druid cantrip of their choice? There are so many things we do not know that can be just as exitng if not more and you guys are still talking about the least interesting part?
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
guys can everyone just shut the **** about the darn abillity scores, they do not matter, its not important, what is important is those otherabillities. is it gonna be like that old 2e rulebook "skills and powers" where each race had an long list of unique benefits and a set of points you could choose to aquire those racial abillities and you could buy all the abillities like the bow bonuses and their trance and the spellcasting of the drow and the special abillity boosts and an familliar thingie all sepperately, where an dwarf could get to have their racial package focus on mining and apprasing objects and examining stonework and other civilian stuff or may use their abillities to improve their combat abillities?
Will it instead be an set of replacement features for every class feature that is considered "cultural", ie we get to replace stonecunning, dwarven combat training, artificer's lore etc with other equally strong racial features, possibly getting to exchange cultural features for other cultural features of the same power level. Will we get to freely alter the spellcasting gained by the tiefling and genasi to more closely align them with our character concepts and whatever fiendish entity spawned them? Will i get to weaken the horns of my minoraur to gain actiually useful features, perhaps even labyrinthine recall and keen smell instead, possibly even training with the axe? Will it be like pathfinder, where half-orc fighters can all make for a pretty diverse and well balanced team? Will i finally be able to play a race that gets an free druid cantrip of their choice? There are so many things we do not know that can be just as exitng if not more and you guys are still talking about the least interesting part?
No. It’s important to us otherwise we wouldn’t be discussing it. Frankly all the other stuff you mentioned is horrifying and I hope never happens.
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False. A goliath wizard by default rules is not a mistake, it’s a choice, perhaps an exception, but still completely workable considering you can still roll an 18, which isn’t even necessary for a workable wizard. If you want your goliath to be weaker than the norm, make strength your dump stat. But it’s not unreasonable to say that even a greatly weakened goliath will still be stronger than a normal gnome. It doesn’t stop you from telling the same story you mentioned. Not in the slightest.
Playing a race that doesn’t have a bonus to intelligence does not hamper your ability to play a wizard. Most of the races don’t have penalties. Playing one that did would make it a heroic exception.
This is false. There is one race that has an intelligence penalty and it’s been corrected in two books so you don’t even have to be saddled with that problem.
And here I thought I made a specific exception for rolling Heroic stats, which obviously allow anyone to play whatever they like. If you roll up an 85-point array with no score lower than twelve, then you can clearly do whatever you heckin' like and it'll work out fine because you're six ASIs stronger than the game is expecting you to be.
If, however, you did not roll a Heroic array, or if you're playing a game where the DM insists on Standard Array? You're kinda hosed if you don't line everything up just right. That sucks. So Wizards decided to do something about it. Why is it so awful that Wizards decided to do something about it? Gnomes can already have a higher Strength score than goliaths, because PCs are rule-breakers. Why do we keep having to justify this idea that PCs break the rules?
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I think I understand it well. I simply don't attach racism to any part of my D&D game, books, or otherwise. You look into it more than it is and I don't. That doesn't mean I have less "understanding" of it.
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Hmm been playing real D&D since August 1980. I think I have dice older than you.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
No offense, but that’s as dumb an argument as complaining that you want to play a Halfling but still want to be 6-foot tall.
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Heh. To be fair, Sposta? While that one would involve some homebrew, I could see there being a fun story in playing a halfling afflicted with genetic gigantism. He's spent his entire life being ridiculed and feeling out of place and excluded because of his size, and has the worst time explaining that to other people because they see a five-foot-four lanky dude and go "So...what? Dude, you're not tall. You're honestly kind of a shrimp..." because they mistake him for a hairier-than-typical human rather than a grossly outsized halfling.
Man, that would be a crazy headspace to explore.
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You referring to people of orcs ? -2 int in my dmg, didn't receive the letter to change it.
Heroes are being created that defy anything remotely close to "normal", no reason to point buy and say the smartest orc wizard possible was 13 while the smartest level 1 elf was 16.
I dont see why you care so much to hang on to picking a race defines your ability maximums.
Because that’s not written anywhere. Who says PCs are rule breakers? And if they are, how can they break rules if those rules have been removed?
Every character still has ASI's to use so you can have a 20 int Goliath, it will just a little longer than with a different race/species. Each race has it's strengths and weaknesses, like darkvision, speed, size, resistances, ability scores, etc and it's not a bad thing. You could be a weaker goliath which is why you went with wizard for your story, but you will still be strong compared to a weak gnome. This isn't like the old days where there is a cap on the race you pick, just on the bonus at the start. You really have to mess up to have an anchor character in 5e, I mean really mess up like put your rolls in the completely wrong area for ability scores. I don't see how you couldn't max out a main ability score in at most 2 ASI's no matter what race you choose so the starting point doesn't really matter. Seems just like fixing something that doesn't need fixing and making things more vanilla.
It’s in two different books. There is a reason. Biologically they are two different species with different capabilities. If we are going to ignore that than all the other racial qualities need to be gotten rid of as well. No dark vision because it doesn’t make sense that certain humanoids can see at night or underground, no powerful build because some individuals are weaker than others, no stealth bonus because some halflings might be clumsy or just not come from a Shire that values sneaking through their farmland.
I care so much because those kinds of choices add to the story. If everyone can just have the same bonus regardless of your background choices, then the backgrounds don’t really mean anything at all. You won’t be heroic. You’ll be just like the 20 other orc PCs that decided to put their ability bonus in their intelligence stat.
biology huh. some races just don't have good enough breeding is what you are saying. nobody is changing your perception of how smart, dextrous a race is. Its about being able to make an individual that is different from the normal. what you have is MORE restrictive. People should be able to put bonuses where they want based on what their PERSONAL BACKGROUND is, not based on what the avg species looks like.
My opinion: If the system added for choosing ability scores is balanced, I will allow it, but if not, I will not allow it. Personally I understand why this option should be added, and why some people think it shouldn’t. I side a little bit on the side of it should be added as an optional rule. Personally I am more worried about people gonna try to exploit the new system to Min Max the fudge out of their characters.
I do think my only con with this rule is that story may suffer a small bit if the players exploit the system in odd ways, and unless DMs really enforce stuff in world building, it wouldn’t seem like a special thing at all to play an unusual race/class when there are people who mass invest in stats that are entirely different than what the race/class combo is good for.
This new system may also unbalance the races. Like some of them are more focused on special stuff you get that are not ability scores. Depending on how the system is implemented, it may make more non ability score based races way stronger and unbalance the game.
Overall I am cautiously excited for the new system, but if it’s unbalanced, then I YEET it out of my games, but if it’s balanced, I’ll embrace it.
No homebrew required. There are already rules for a 6-foot tall Halfling. They’re called humans.
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As someone that plays a not only a goliath wizard, but also a half-orc wizard*, I will say that I don't need a homogeneous starting position (e.g. all races have same starting stats) to either feel effective or useful to a group.
I will also say that I will find it rather boring if that is the published optional solution. Sure, PCs are heros but there should be no way a starting gnome hero is just as strong as the strongest starting goliath hero. It just doesnt make sense, stains credulity (yes, even in a fantasy setting), and both cheapens the experience and general flavor of the species.
What good is a lot of the various species lore if, as one poster stated, you are just a reskinned human in gnome/goliath garb?
That being stated, I reskin things often. My tiefling is a dwarven assimar that became a tiefling during the fall of Azriel. Stats of a tiefling; appearance, general demeanor and age of a dwarf. My warlock's familiar is weasel reskinned to look like a squirrel.
Seems like the easiest option rule would be to allow for DMs to reskin the races/species; as they already can, but in a more official optional capacity.
*My favorite character of all time, and the one this account is named after, Was a halfing fighter from Everquest 1 that I turned into two-weapon halfling fighter in 2.0/3.0 dnd. Eithet 3.0 or 3.5 changed the rules on me, I dont remember which, and it completely ruined my character concept so I had to recreate the charcter as a dwarf.
So being able to customize races would have been an improvement...
A thing to bear in mind about this is: the DM can still decide what characters they're willing to accept in the game. The question is really whether the DM wants to apply an unusual character concept tax.
It's not about race. Elves, humans and orcs, etc are different species..
Different species have different inherent attributes that have nothing to do with breeding or background. That's why a gorilla is stronger than a mouse, and will always be.
Actually no.
It was a core class feature, not a change in how stats were determined that killed my character concept. Certain races were given small size and of course size restrictions based on such. In hindisght, I probably could have asked for my new dwarf to simply look like a halfling. The backstory remained largely the same.
If size restrictions are removed, then the game likely will have a very fundamental change requiring further rewrites since size has both pros and cons.
guys can everyone just shut the **** about the darn abillity scores, they do not matter, its not important, what is important is those other abillities. is it gonna be like that old 2e rulebook "skills and powers" where each race had an long list of unique benefits and a set of points you could choose to aquire those racial abillities and you could buy all the abillities like the bow bonuses and their trance and the spellcasting of the drow and the special abillity boosts and an familliar thingie all sepperately, where an dwarf could get to have their racial package focus on mining and apprasing objects and examining stonework and other civilian stuff or may use their abillities to improve their combat abillities?
Will it instead be an set of replacement features for every class feature that is considered "cultural", ie we get to replace stonecunning, dwarven combat training, artificer's lore etc with other equally strong racial features, possibly getting to exchange cultural features for other cultural features of the same power level. Will we get to freely alter the spellcasting gained by the tiefling and genasi to more closely align them with our character concepts and whatever fiendish entity spawned them? Will i get to weaken the horns of my minoraur to gain actiually useful features, perhaps even labyrinthine recall and keen smell instead, possibly even training with the axe? Will it be like pathfinder, where half-orc fighters can all make for a pretty diverse and well balanced team? Will i finally be able to play a race that gets an free druid cantrip of their choice? There are so many things we do not know that can be just as exitng if not more and you guys are still talking about the least interesting part?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
No. It’s important to us otherwise we wouldn’t be discussing it. Frankly all the other stuff you mentioned is horrifying and I hope never happens.