The Only Thing I Don't Like About 5e! (Hint- ASIs)

[Sacrosanct]

This may be too radical as it won't be D&D, but I'd do stats with 2 impacts:

Roll under ability checks (like we used to do in AD&D. Want a skill check? Roll d20 and hope to get your score or lower. May get penalty or bonus depending on what you're doing.). This allows every point in an ability to matter, and not just every other point when you get an extra bonus like now.

Abilities, powers, feats, spell level, etc have a min stat requirement. Sort of like 3e feats. Being extra strong doesn't give you a +4 to hit and damage, but does allow you the option to get a feat that might give those bonuses (along with a non combat feature--every feat has at least a non combat feature whenever possible as well as combat)

But get rid of individual stat bonuses. No more + to hit, damage, etc. Maybe bonuses are level based instead of stat based. So at level 10, you have a +5 bonus to saving throws, attack rolls, etc. Just tossing out thoughts here.

 

[S'mon]

Swords & Wizardry is a great game.

 

[GreyLord]

Only read the OP thus far. To it, I'd say...your about 2 generations too late.

Someone else may have already said this...if sooo...sorry.

This increased focus on ability scores started with 3e. It is there that you were able to add bonus points to your ability scores ever 4 levels. As such, there was an increase in the focus on how high one could get (and you got some ridiculously high scores).

4e started limiting level increases (standard was +1 to your proficiency/to hit/etc every 2 levels) and thus the Ability score increases were even more important in some ways.

Many saw this and the absurdity of it to a degree, which is why they came up with some of the ideas 5e has (whether one agrees or disagrees with those design philosophies).

They went with bounded accuracy in almost the exact opposite direction of 3e. Thus, you only get a gap of +4 normally between 1st and 20th level on your proficiency increase. In addition, they made it so you could not get absurd scores typically, so the highest a character can normally get is 20 in any ability score.

Even with their alternate epic boons rule you can only get up to a 30 in any ability score. There are no more 75 STR +64 with an AC of 98 characters walking around (well, there may be, but I can't see how one would design such a beast in 5e) anymore.

5e actually was the solution or stopgap to wildly abused and undercontrolled ASI's as you would put it.

I DO understand where you are coming from. Martial characters particularly got the shaft in this arena. They let Rogue types get expertise, and wizards (who also got a lot of power slashed) still have some pretty almighty spells, as do Clerical types...but martials lost one of their main defining features which was the ability to be more accurate with their hits than anyone else.

I understand this, and am sympathetic to it, but I also understand the reason why 5e made the choices it did. I personally houserule that Fighters get to double their proficiency bonus with a weapon (so, like rogue's expertise, but with a chosen weapon). It is more powerful than the Weapon Specialization (and double specialization) of the past, but it also restores the original feel of the Fighter being able to hit much more aptly than anyone else.

I do not always use that rule, and sometimes instead focus ON the ASIs (depends on the group, the first is when I play with Old School gamers, this is when I play with old 3e gamers who love 3e). Using the epic boon rule, I use it for the actual leveling up instead. Thus they are not limited to simply 20 in an ability score.

If I use neither one of those (and I don't at times), and do straight up 5e, I make sure if I do have someone who feels like Fighters are not accurate enough has readily access to Belts of Giant Strength, just to even up that they can access such things if they so desire.

 

[Greg Benage]

Definitely like the idea of scaling down ability score bonuses and scaling up proficiency bonus.

 

[Eric V]

I don't think it's up for debate that in terms of bang for your buck, ASIs in your primary stat are better than feats.

Having said that, if your DM runs encounters using the CR system as presented (especially with the modifiers for additional creatures), you won't miss the extra plusses that come from the ASI. In this, [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] s assertion that D&D is too easy can be made to work for the game; go ahead and take Keen Mind or Actor, it won't affect the math in combat and skills overmuch. There are corner cases, of course, but a game where no ASIs existed wouldn't need to be tweaked at all as far as things like encounter-building are concerned, I suspect.

 

[Grognerd]

The more I think on this, I do think that perhaps a middle-ground solution could be to simply remove the +2 ASI, but leave the rest as is. To wit: Feats either offer Something, or +1 and something. The alternative is +1/+1. With this method, gaining +2 to a stat demands two ASI opportunities, whether by taking a +1/+1 or by taking a +1/something. Using standard array (because it's easy) with your top two stats being 15/14, then if you completely dedicated all five of the ASI from 1st-20th lvl. (discounting fighters/rogues and their bonus ASI) you wouldn't have 20/19 until 19th level. Since 19th level is pretty stout, cool. But at 8th level, for example, you'd only have 17/16 at best. That's manageable. Non-human characters have an edge on this, since they have stat mods, but most (not all, obviously) people I know prefer the human variant over the base human, and so would have an additional feat. Comparing feats to straight ASI, and I also fall into the crowd of thinking I'd rather have a Feat than an ASI in most cases.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Right on board with you...mostly.. [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION].

I think for my next game I may just have to sub-in the stat advancement method as found in Hackmaster 4th Edition (the "old version" that uses 1e/2e as the base). In short, each stat has a %, like Strength did in 1e. Each class gets a set d# to add to that % based on each stat (so a Fighter gets to add 1d20% to his Strength %, and the Magic-User gets to add 1d20% to his Intelligence stat; The Fighter gets 1d4% to his Intelligence, and the MU 1d4% to his Strength). The bonus for a stat is a d20 for the classes most important 'prime requisite', down to d4 for the least. Once a stat goes over 100, you add a point to the actual Stat and subtract 100 from the %. Rinse, repeat.

The HM4 is gained every level, btw. I'd probably just treat ASI bonus levels as just getting two extra dice for whatever stats they want (e.g., at BEST a character could roll 3d20 for their main stat, for example). Biggest problem is going to be the ASI's that Fighters get seemingly 'all the time'. Kinda saw that starting to poke when people were getting past level 4 or 5 (which has happened, like twice? Three times maybe?). Seeing that, as we don't use Feats, a Fighter was going to become an epic stat-hound with stats that have no real 'part' of the character becoming as good or better than characters where that stat was at least somewhat important.

I think this would cut down on the "absolute certainty" that by Level X the character will have Stat ##. It also lets the character increase everything...to some degree or another...which, to me, feels MUCH more "character is learning and getting better at the whole adventuring thing".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[The Human Target]

a. ASIs are stupid. Really. I know many people don't care about things conceptually, but the idea of every character gaining "demigod like" abilities is stupid from a narrative standpoint. Does every fighter have to be Hercules?

b. ASIs create sameiness. Again, bounded accuracy should resolve this dilemma, but ... I have seen many games now, and it seems that all PCs take roughly similar ASI paths. BORING.

c. High level characters are weak, and so are some of the monsters. This has been brought up before, but ... stat dumping? One of the advantages of becoming THUNDARR, DESTROYER OF WORLDS is that you shouldn't have to worry that any rando intellect devourer will kick your corn-fed behind.

d. It makes point-buy/standard array to appealing. I really love character creation, and I really love rolling up characters. But we can't do that in 5e, because, well, it matters too much. What with ASIs.

I'm sure that there are other reasons, but that's what I've been thinking about, and I want to get the conversation started. So, does anyone else feel like this? Am I alone?

Interesting perspective.

A) A 20 strength isn't actually super strong. Certainly not Hercules/magical demigod status. A 20 is a +5 versus the average humans at 10 +0. That's actually one of the problems of the 5e cap- you can't actually get very strong (or smart or charming)in a meaningful mechanical way.

B) Does it create more sameness than in 1e, when ability scores did very little and level did more heavy lifting but still resulted in very similar numbers between characters?

C) How can you not want "demigod" ability scores but still call high level characters weak? The crappy 5e save system doesn't have much to do with ASIs.

D) Rolling for ability scores is more doable in the older editions because they do less. But if they do so little, who cares what your scores are? And did you really see a lot of wizards with a 17 Strength and a 12 Intelligence? Really? Did anyone? Why do ASIs actually make weird ability score distributions more viable, as you can play catch up later on.

 

[guachi]

My main problem isn't ASIs but you do allude to it and that's the fact that monsters have ability scores for every ability. The net result is that I figure out how good I want the creature to be at something and then pick ability scores that, in conjunction with the monster's proficiency bonus, gets me to the total bonus I want.

It seems a bit artificial and backwards.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I just ... I don't know. You're right re: proficiency bonus, and it does simplify things.

But something has been gnawing at me for a while, and I've been trying to figure it out, and this is it. It's definitely ASIs.

...and paladins.

My Gnome Paladin/Swashbuckler, Rexington Dwint Bertrand Amadeus Farsnworth Barthalemew Errol Shnicknini IV, takes no ASIs. He took Dual Wielder, to use two rapiers, and Mounted Combatant, to better control his Giant Goat mount, Biggs. His pet goshawk, Wedge, thinks he should have taken ASI's to boost his Dex and Cha, but goshawks are notorious powergamers.

Seriously, though, roll stats. I think most groups do.

My group doesn't, and we solved the ASI issue by adding a +1 to an ability of your choice whenever you gain a feat.