D&D 5E Solution to ASI Problem

Wulffolk said:

This is the crux of where our views diverge. There are at least two types of players here:
One prefers to have fun telling a story with friends and using the system to help them do that. Role-Player.
The other has fun manipulating the system to win a perceived competition with other players. War-Gamer.

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One group prefers to make decisions as their character would, based on their understanding of how the world actually works. Role-Player.
The other makes up facts about how the world works, based on their own out-of-game notions about how they want it to work. Meta-Gamer.
Another group invents facts about how the world works, to facilitate a narrative that they want to promote. Story-Teller.

D&D is a role-playing game. All of my answers are from that perspective. Story-telling is entirely missing the point. Meta-gaming is anathema. Your mileage may vary.

Wulffolk said:

As a side note, how much more effective is Joe with his Wisdom that has not been dumped (and maybe even bumped up a little) when him and Larry are the victims of a Charm spell.

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Zero percent more effective, ninety-five percent of the time. Joe and Larry would have to be targeted by twenty Charm attempts before that bonus to Wisdom paid off one time, on average. (As a side note, I've played entire campaigns from one to twenty and barely made twenty Wisdom saves over the course of the whole thing.) It's also entirely within the realm of possibility that Larry would consistently succeed while Joe consistently failed. That small of a modifier is entirely overwhelmed by the randomness of the die.

Wulffolk said:

Or, how much less damage will Bob take once he engages in melee because he was more effective than Larry at range. Then again, were Larry to be Charmed and turned against Joe or Bob, how much less effective would Larry be when Joe knocked him prone, or Bob proves his mastery of great weapons.

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Now you're talking feats, which actually are comparable to increasing your primary stat. I would expect both Bob and Joe to consistently outshine Larry from level four until level six, because you've altered the relevant costs in order to make it so. Of course, Larry wouldn't actually take nothing at level 4 in the hopes of getting one feat-equivalent at level 6; in a world with feats, Larry would take Lucky or Resilient or something else which is actually as useful as +2 to Strength.

Wulffolk said:

Larry's player would not be welcome for very long by the group that he tries to steal the spotlight from by proving his system mastery.

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Don't confuse the player with the character. Larry may be a jerk, but Larry's player is just doing their best to play the character they envisioned. Ideally, the game should support playing all different types of characters, whether they are jerks or team-players or gruff lone-wolf types with a heart of gold.

The underlying problem is that the game makes it more likely for certain character types to thrive, where others suffer and risk threat of death. If you want to play a fighter who is more of a scholarly type instead of a typical meat-head, for whatever reason, then the mechanics of the game actively punish you for it. Your house rule doesn't solve that problem. (A house rule that would solve that problem, for example, would be something like removing ability scores from the attack roll and replacing them with double proficiency; or letting you add your highest ability bonus to the attack roll, instead of just Strength or Dexterity. Those house rules have other problems, of course, but they would address the problem at hand.)

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6871450]Wulffolk[/MENTION] I know Larry IRL and you're both right about him.

shidaku said:

Then why do you care about the mathematics? Or do you just not have an argument?

I mean seriously I'm getting mixed messages here. You started this thread because you had a an idea about solving the "ASI problem". I mentioned that the problem is not ASIs, the problem is how much a class values any given stat. You countered with an argument about how players might value different stats. I told you that has nothing to do with the ASI problem in the first place. And now you what, are implying I'm playing the game wrong?

Look it's simple:
If players by nature value different stats then there is no ASI problem. There can't be. Because if this is true then a player will say "I'd rather have a 16 Str and a 16 Wisdom because I just want to be a wise old fighter, regardless of any mechanical benefit I may gain or lose."
If you just don't like the fact that it's possible to "max out" a certain score, remember that the caps are arbitrary mechanical limitations designed to balance the game, they are not the absolute maximum scores those creatures may have in the game world unless YOU the DM say so.
If you want players to mechanically value different stats, you need class features that place value on those stats. Otherwise they're always going to put their points where it matters the most.

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You are right, I have no argument that can sway somebody that has chosen to dig their heels in and defend a position based on personal opinion as if it were fundamental truth, or that chooses to mis-characterize statements to support their position. I understand and accept that you disagree with me on this. If you must "win" this "arguement" then please consider yourself vindicated.

However, if you care to understand where I have been coming from, then allow me to explain. There are people like me that believe that ASI's are a problem. I offered a potential solution to that problem, for those that agree with me. You claimed that there is no problem with ASI's. At that point this discussion should have been irrelevant to you. Simply stating your disagreement does not mean that I must accept it as the one and only truth. The only mixed signal here has been your need to prove your opinion to be more valuable than mine.

Despite the fact that in post #43 I specifically acknowledged that both ways are valid so long as everybody is having fun, you somehow read that as me telling you that you are playing wrong. Huh? It is difficult at best, and typically impossible, to "win arguements" over the internet with people that find ways to be offended in order to justify a position.

You and I disagree on this. Let's leave it at that. You proved your point to those that would agree with you, but failed to prove anything to anybody that felt ASI's are actually a problem. I like knowing when people disagree with me and are too closed-minded to look at things from a different perspective. Kinda like when I see somebody driving around with a Trump sticker on their car, or wearing a cross around their neck. It tells me that the odds are that I would be wasting my time discussing politics or religion with them.

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]

If you are basing your argument on math, then you must know that it is flawed when you claim that Joe would be 0% more effective than Larry 95% of the time.

Let us assume that both started with a 15 Strength and a 10 in Wisdom.
Both are likely to bump their Strength to 16 at the first opportunity, which costs 3 points. That is achievable at 6th level.

Larry chooses to hold that extra point for further Strength increases. To get to 18 would cost him 7 more points, for a total of 10. He could hit 18 Strength at 14th level.

Now Joe chooses to improve his willpower by increasing Wisdom. He can spend 2 point to get 12 at 6th level. It will take him 3 more points to get to 14, which could be done by 12th level. That is a +2 to Wisdom saves and Ability checks 2 levels before Larry even gets +1 more modifier to his Strength.

Let's say they both needed to make a DC 15 Wisdom say against a spell that would incapacitate them. That +2 bonus that Joe has means that he would be 100% more effective than Larry 40% more often. That is not insignificant.

If the DM is only placing challenges before Larry and Joe that require them to swing a sword, then after hitting 14th level Larry will be slightly more effective. If the DM utilizes any level of creativity or imagination to reward Joe for being more than one-dimensional then Joe will outshine Larry for the majority of his career, especially through the mid-levels.

That is only taking Ability increases into account. If Bob were to take Feats instead of Ability increases then he would have 3 more nifty tricks or tactics or interesting aspects to his character before Larry even got that +1 extra modifier.

The path to "power" is still open to Larry, but at a cost. I think this is a step in the right direction for encouraging diversity in builds and reducing clones. I don't think that every player would choose the same path, given those options.

In the end it comes down to the DM. The game only actively punishes or rewards any particular build when the DM decides that it does.

schnee said:

You're in good company. I've seen hundreds of games that were made by people that think D&D is 80% there, 'except for these parts', and then try to get people to play their version.

Having played many many games over time, each one just pushes the same amount of versimilitude-breaking nonsense to different places that don't bug the designer so much. The sad part is, 99% of the people who ever look at their game don't care. And unless your production values are as good as D&D, why should they?

I wish you luck.

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I wasn't sure of the tone of your post, being mocking or supportive, but I gave you XP anyways. I will just assume that you had good intentions, and remain blissfully ignorant of any potential snarkiness.

Yeah, it is sincere.

D&D can definitely be improved, but there's a certain tipping point that makes it hard to get and keep people because their previous knowledge feels like it no longer applies, and the discomfort of learning a new system has to be balanced against how much better the new system is and the 'sunk cost' of this one table/game being different.

For most people, rule sets aren't better enough to motivate them to make the switch. They play RPGs for a bunch of reasons, and if the rules are good enough, then why switch? Nothing's perfect. Since D&D is the one and only RPG most play, and they don't have experience to know what is better or not, why take the risk with some dude who may be really emotionally attached to 'his' system due to how much work he's put into it and might be really defensive towards any criticism? Can the players house-rule it themselves? It goes on.

Things that take a fundamentally new approach that rewards a completely different set of competencies are an easier sell - if they have a low enough barrier to entry. But, still, you have to get over that hump of 'D&D isn't scratching a certain itch'. That's why games like Dungeon World have small and dedicated fanbases that are mostly made up of people that are generally really experienced D&D players.

There is more to it, of course, but mostly pitfalls. It's an uphill battle.

Wulffolk said:

If you are basing your argument on math, then you must know that it is flawed when you claim that Joe would be 0% more effective than Larry 95% of the time.

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No, my math is sound and irrefutable, and if you disagree with it here then you are in error. Seriously, this is basic statistics. (I can't claim my math is always infallible, but this really is that simple.)

If you compare Joe and Larry at the moment before making their decision (when they are identical in all ways), to the period immediately after Joe increases his Wisdom by two points and Larry decides to bank points toward a future increase in Strength, then the only difference is that now Joe is five percent more likely to succeed on any Wisdom-based check (and Larry is not). If the two subsequently wander into the mists of confusion, and are forced to make a DC 15 Wisdom save to avoid becoming confused, then there's a 5% chance that Joe's choice will pay off. If he rolls exactly 14 on the d20, then his +1 will turn that into 15 and he will pass instead of fail. If he rolls any other number - which is a 95% chance that he doesn't roll exactly 14 - then that +1 was entirely meaningless, because he would have passed or failed regardless of his choice.

You can try to muck with the exchange rates if you want, and maybe +2 Strength in the long run isn't worth passing up +2 Wisdom twice if the campaign ends right at level 14, but look at the math. A bonus of +4 to Wisdom means there's only a ninety percent chance that the choice was irrelevant in any given instance. Even if you only play one session at level 14, Larry still looks pretty good.

(1 Day) x (6 Combats / Day) x (3 Rounds / Combat) x (3 Attacks / Round) x (2 Strength checks / Attack) = 108 Strength checks in an adventuring day, and that's just in combat. Is anyone going to make 108 Wisdom-based checks between level 6 and level 14? That includes Perception and Wisdom saves, so it's not entirely out of the question, but this is specifically a scenario which you have contrived in order to make your choice look better, and it doesn't clearly do that.

If the DM utilizes any level of creativity or imagination to reward Joe for being more than one-dimensional then Joe will outshine Larry for the majority of his career, especially through the mid-levels.

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If the DM is intentionally setting obstacles in order to reward bad decisions by the players, then the entire game is meaningless. There's no point in making even the simplest decision - say, to use a longsword instead of a dagger with your high-Strength melee fighter - because the DM is going to meta-game obstacles in order to account for that. It's a degenerate solution, and not worth discussion.

schnee said:

Yeah, it is sincere.

D&D can definitely be improved, but there's a certain tipping point that makes it hard to get and keep people because their previous knowledge feels like it no longer applies, and the discomfort of learning a new system has to be balanced against how much better the new system is and the 'sunk cost' of this one table/game being different.

For most people, rule sets aren't better enough to motivate them to make the switch. They play RPGs for a bunch of reasons, and if the rules are good enough, then why switch? Nothing's perfect. Since D&D is the one and only RPG most play, and they don't have experience to know what is better or not, why take the risk with some dude who may be really emotionally attached to 'his' system due to how much work he's put into it and might be really defensive towards any criticism? Can the players house-rule it themselves? It goes on.

Things that take a fundamentally new approach that rewards a completely different set of competencies are an easier sell - if they have a low enough barrier to entry. But, still, you have to get over that hump of 'D&D isn't scratching a certain itch'. That's why games like Dungeon World have small and dedicated fanbases that are mostly made up of people that are generally really experienced D&D players.

There is more to it, of course, but mostly pitfalls. It's an uphill battle.

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For sure.

I often let myself get carried away with modifying this game, sometimes to the point where it is pretty much a completely different game. The main feature of D&D when it comes to finding people to RP with is name-recognition. It is much easier to recruit people to "play D&D" than it is to convince people to play almost anything else, especially something they don't already know. It is a fine balancing act, one that I sometimes go too far with and have to scale back my enthusiasm.

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]

Your right, if you can't agree that a 7 in 20 chance of success is 40% better than a 5 in 20 chance, then there is no point in discussing it further. If you can't agree that having a statistical benefit for most of a character's career has benefit that might be worth considering over a +1 that doesn't come online until 14th level, then it is a waste of time to continue this discussion. And if what I wrote doesn't convince you that others might not share your opinion of The One True Way to build a Fighter, then you and I would obviously be incompatible at the same table. Thank you for making that clear. We need not waste more effort disputing the nature of math, reality or opinions. Good luck, and I hope you have fun repeatedly playing the same Fighter with 20 Strength over and over again.

Wulffolk said:

Your right, if you can't agree that a 7 in 20 chance of success is 40% better than a 5 in 20 chance, then there is no point in discussing it further. If you can't agree that having a statistical benefit for most of a character's career has benefit that might be worth considering over a +1 that doesn't come online until 14th level, then it is a waste of time to continue this discussion. And if what I wrote doesn't convince you that others might not share your opinion of The One True Way to build a Fighter, then you and I would obviously be incompatible at the same table. Thank you for making that clear. We need not waste more effort disputing the nature of math, reality or opinions. Good luck, and I hope you have fun repeatedly playing the same Fighter with 20 Strength over and over again.

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It's not my fault that you're bad at math. You can't blame me for that.

Meanwhile, I'll be over here trying to actually solve the problem at hand, which your suggestion still doesn't do. I mean, feel free to take it through a test run in your next campaign, but my advance prediction is that you won't be happy with the results. If you're fixed on this as a solution, you might have better luck if you introduce additional changes to the system in order to support it.