So… I had to stop reading this and walk away for a moment.
If this is the perspective your working from, I think I get why you are so frustrated and angry.
This is nothing like what I said or meant. I spent hours in my session zero going over the world and details that the characters would obviously know. I despise my PCs not knowing the rules of the world, because then they can’t act in character, they can’t explore what their particular niche in the world is if they don’t understand it.
I have had a DM pull that on me in the past. Similar scenarios have happened multiple times. DMs seem to love nothing more than playing that "gotcha" game, telling you after the fact that your character violated a law or taboo a denizen of the world probably knew about, but I as a person outside of that world with none of its culture naturally wouldn't have.
Know what I didn’t tell them? I didn’t tell them the history of a minor goddess who has no temple in their Tower City, but when a player rolled a ridicously high religion check, I told him of how she ascended to godhood after losing a 1v1 fight against a god called Bane.
When they encountered a Remorhaz in a dungeon, I had them roll. They would never have encountered this creature in their homes, it isn’t even native to the area they were in, it was something brought in by a 3rd party. They didn’t roll high enough to learn much, but I did say the the one person had seen pictures of them before and knew that this one was an infant.
I told every single player about the fact that the ruler of their tower appears human, but has been the guy in charge for over a thousand years.
I told all of them about the High Nobel house which is the sole banking organization for the Tower, and writes contracts that include the use of dead bodies as collateral, because they are necromancers and use the zombies as slave labor to cover debts, they also charge insane interest rates and debt can travel through generations of families.
So, do me a small favor. Next time you feel the urge to rant about how terrible my style of play is, step back and think if you actually know what my style of play is. Because false accusations aren’t conducive to an actual discussion.
I’ll go back to reading the rest of your post now.
Okay, and we can see from your examples... that the results of these checks in no way contributed to a faster or better resolution of the story. It gave YOU the opportunity to spout off more of your prepared backstory, but in terms of actually accomplishing the goals? It didn't do a damn thing. Certainly if one had the choice between getting an extra +1 to 80% of the rolls they make during the game or getting to hear a bit more of the DM's excuse for the situation that is, frankly, utterly irrelevant. Why does it matter where the shambling hordes came from when they are lurching towards you, wouldn't you prefer to dodge out of the way rather than adjust your glasses and say "umm.. actually, according to the garments worn by these zombies are from... agh! Ow! GAAAAHH!" as you get eaten for being slow and ineffectual? I would certainly say so.
It quite frankly then seems like these checks are done for YOUR benefit, but actually harm the success rate of the party as a whole. So maybe one could justify it being something that one player in the entire party invests into in a very minor way if they have some extra points left over after covering their actually relevant bases... but until you have covered what is actually going to be relevant to your ability to survive the given scenario, its just extra decoration.
First boost your ability to survive the damn scenario, then and only then can you maybe think of investing in the "DM, would you please regal us with your stories."
When does it ever particularly help to know what the hell an unusual monster happens to be called if it is a one-off encounter? Unless it has some particular abilities or weaknesses that can help you formulate a way to survive running into it, what some other person who encountered it in the past happened to call it is completely irrelevant. If you ran into a bear in the woods, is the most important thing to you in that scenario to on-the-spot recall the correct scientific name of the bear and which naturalist first cataloged the species? How would doing so in any way contribute to you walking away from that encounter intact?
Seriously, the name of the monster is utterly irrelevant. If no useful information is to be gleaned, it is all well that they walk out of that scenario with the fewest number of wounds thinking they discovered a new species and deciding what they are going to name it themselves.
I understand that as a writer, I’m more comfortable building a lot of lore and world compared to others, but just because you may not know the answer to every question doesn’t mean those skills can’t be used. After all, if the goal is to ambush the tax man, you can tell them they know when he is arriving and that they can wait the 3 weeks until his next scheduled stop. If they don’t feel like waiting 3 weeks, then you move on, you don’t need more detail than that until things move forward.
Actually, in that particular case I was considering the scenario if the PCs wanted to try to pose as government agents and thus needed the relevant information in order to present themselves as credible by using the right names and the right locations and being able to create a functional backstory.
But, this in itself highlights just how useless those Intelligence skills are it is quite close to your proposed scenario...
It kind of amuses me to a point, do you think that if one person isn’t trained in stealth or wears heavy armor they should retrain their character, because if only one person fails a stealth check the entire campaign could grind to a screeching halt because the only way forward was to sneak past the guards?
Of course not, lying and fighting are options. Hey, what if someone wanted to roll History to see if there could be an official reason to be in here? I don’t know if there is, but it might be a fun roll to make. Will people get angry at them for wasting everyone’s time, or will they be curious if that is the answer to the problem.
Yeah, see... thing is? In that case? That is one of those situations where generally you split the party and have the scout well... scout ahead. Except beyond frustratingly the person who wrote up the stats now created an entire RACE within the game, hell-- one of the most common, larger and more competent races-- that now apparently can never afford to do this or they lose out on literally the only actual benefit they get.
But the thing is-- notice how your Intelligence check does nothing but possibly point you in a fruitful direction. Ultimately if they decide to go in that direction, it is Charisma that is going to ultimately decide it. And, honestly, if they were going to try to bluff their way out of the situation anyway, they could have done those Deception or Persuasion checks without ever having rolled that History check in the first place. And so maybe you give them advantage for having made that History check? Except you can only get Advantage once and there are numerous other ways they could gain that advantage on the Deception check that don't involve any investment in the Intelligence Attribute or taking an entirely fluff skill that is never going to directly contribute to the success or resolution of the story.
Making this as short as possible, Intelligence and particularly assigning that bonus to all Hobgoblins in all regions and all worlds everywhere across all of D&D is something I strongly object to on several basis.
1) Intelligence contributes to and triggers no actual class abilities or universal abilities of any kind within the gameoutside of the single Wizard class or two subclasses that incorporate Wizard elements, it is virtually never used as a save and when it is it is with the lower stakes attached than other saves.
2) ALL of the skills attached to Intelligence as skills where it is often not clear where it is appropriate to use them, they all involve asking the DM for information that was obfuscated or hidden, intentional or not, information that the DM may not even have or has no extra information to give. And success on them, more often than not, at best points you in a general direction to go, a direction the DM is probably going to eventually give anyway if things get too stalled, and it will be skills attached to other attributes that will actually determine the success or failure. In other words, outside of scenarios that might arise a small handful of times during an adventurer's life, they aren't worth having-- and you need to compare these side-by-side with skills you are going to be using dozens of times every adventure. When one has to choose between those two options, the empty fluff that is hardly ever relevant abilities lose out to the ones that actually determine success or failure.
3) The only possibly justification I have heard for saddling hobgoblin with this worthless Attribute is claims of "tactical" thinking-- except that WotC has been openly hostile to the very idea of making available any class that can at all turn Intelligence bonuses into bonuses in actual battle. In short-- TACTICS in D&D are not a damn thing that exists that could possibly shape the outcome of any skirmish-- or, at the very least, they are considered a universal thing that is not remotely attached to the attribute system whatsoever, much less the Intelligence attribute. Intelligence EXCLUSIVELY means "magic and technology" and is CLEARLY inapplicable in any other manner as directly demonstrated by the classes in the game. So not only is it crap, it is unjustifiable crap because the same design team now justifying this decision with those claims already stated that such claims are invalid within the D&D game!
You show me the damn WotC crafted or approved "tactical" class that uses Intelligence bonus to contribute to the positive outcome of battles without the implicit use of magic and then maybe we can have a conversation. Until then, any such statements are just blowing smoke up everyone's rear ends. In D&D "Intelligence" just means "ask the DM what to do" and "magic power" and the overwhelming majority of the time it doesn't even mean magic power as the majority of the classes shifted their casting over to the whole superior Charisma attribute.
I’ve played with DMs where there was only one correct answer, and going the wrong way ground everything to a halt and made everything horrible, but just because a skill isn’t an “I win” button doesn’t mean it isn’t useful, just because someone else is good at something doesn’t mean your time was wasted, though I try to make players aware if they are stepping on too many toes, after all, some people get territorial about their niches.
And you know, I don’t need to do anything about splitting the party. Not only will they do it for me, but why on Earth would an elf know about the layout of the hobgoblin city they are infiltrating? That’s a history check I’d let a hobgoblin make, but not neccesarily anyone else. And, it could be great rping that Hobgoblins don’t like to split the party, move as a unit, fight as a unit. Makes perfect sense for them.
No, it very well means that. "My character survives with fewer wounds, fewer dead allies, more gold in the pocket to upgrade for the next challenge" vs. "I contribute almost nothing to success, but I can pester the DM to justify every element of the world and roll high enough to force the issue." The later just isn't useful or meaningful. If the DM really did write up a big spiel about their world, I am sure they will regale the players with it regardless in some way. If they are just winging it, its just going to annoy them as they will find themselves without sufficient answers to the questions.
A successful skill roll should result in a tangible success of some sort, in that it should bring one closer to a successful resolution of the story. If even a success on a skill roll does not net you anything meaningful towards the success of the story, then why are you demanding a skill roll in the first place?
The name of the monster doesn't matter, while I am sure you feel that the name attached to the stat block is a critically important piece of information to you, if you change your perspective to someone living in the world-- that name is nothing more than what someone who previously encountered the creature decided to call it. Knowing what someone else decided to call the thing trying to kill you in no way helps you have it not kill you. A far better use of a turn would be literally anything that avoids it killing you and possibly anything that instead helps you kill it or drive it away. After the encounter the party is free to call it whatever they want to call it and in no way would be "wrong" for doing so except that anyone who knows anything about the creature won't immediately understand what creature they encountered without a good description.]
Neither is being able to know the backstory of how the shambling horde coming towards you happened to come about. Nor is simply the starting point for how you should bluff your way out of a situation, particularly if you can get advantage on the check from any other source.
And, actually, even your example here immediately falls apart. Elves are a damn century old and not too infrequently go to war with hobgoblins. Given that they are universally trained to be warriors (as indicated by receiving proficiency in the best ranged weapon and the best 1-handed melee weapon in the base game), one would think they would have been told at some point how their frequent enemy's city is laid out. Literally any Elf or Dwarf has the perfect justification for knowing right there.
And, you know what?! You just further demonstrated how crap Lore checks are! "Well, I decided your character can't know this piece of information, so you can't even make the check in the skill you are trained in." Would you ever do that with any other skill covered by any other attribute? "I decided your character doesn't have the background to roll this Persuasion check", "oh, given your character background you can't roll a stealth check in this scenairo", "well, as much as you might like to climb that wall, given your character background I have decided you can't use an athletics check here.", "Well, I just don't see how an Elf could possibly roll a Medicine check in this scenario", "it doesn't matter how high your Perception is, a Halfling's perception doesn't count!"
So you have just shackled these already worthless Intelligence skills with yet another drawback-- the fact that DMs can just, on a total whim, decide that a character couldn't possibly have come by the information because of their background and deny the roll to be made at all. Something that does not apply to any other skill.
A handful of things.
1) If the players ask to search a room, I am going to ask for investigation. That is what the skill is meant for, if everyone you’ve ever played with wants perception instead… well, homebrew is fine, but that isn’t what that skill is meant for. I remember when talking about my player crafting items you were very clear that homebrew rules weren’t something we should be using to compare, and yet that is exactly what you are talking about, people homebrewing to make the skill less useful
2) You didn’t address the fact the PHB actually calls for more specificity from Perception, not Investigation
3) Out of curiosity, how is “Do I see anything down this hallway?” “Is there anything interesting in this room” “Do I see where he might have stashed the loot” ect less pestering if the DM replies “Roll perception” than if they reply “Roll Investigation”?
You’re talking like people need to constantly ask for one, but they never need to ask for the other, bu =t your examples seem overwhelmingly to require them to ask no matter what?
4) Do you honestly see so much use of Medicine? I’m playing a doctor character (Gnome Life Cleric) and I’ve only used Medicine a handful of times, I never would have pegged it as one of the big skills.
It seems you didn't quite comprehend what I was saying about Investigation vs. Perception.
Investigation checks are something the player actively has to choose to do. They have to choose to do it on their initiative regardless of whether there is anything to even be gained through making the roll. You encountered 12 doors and 8 chest through going through the dungeon, you are required to make an Investigation roll on every single one of them if you hope to catch the random 1 of each that has a trap. That is 18 unnecessary rolls you had to make that were never going to net you any reward for succeeding.
To what degree is the person making constant rolls for no reason at the table actually appreciated? And just how long is one going to be encouraged to keep making those rolls after the 10th time of hearing "there is NOTHING! absolutely NOTHING!!" As bad as those traps on the random objects that are going to require you to investigate every single random object you encounter are, they aren't as bad as constantly making rolls for no reason at all. Moreover, you know what the DM is going to do? He is just going to hide those traps even more sneakily "oh, sure, you checked every door and every chest and every cupboard and vase... but you forgot to check every floor and ceiling!! GOTCHA!!" So either this escalates now with the PC having to make 5 checks in literally every single room they enter... or one just ultimately gives up realizing they can't beat this imaginary game of hide-and-seek and lets the DM kill the party over and over thinking "gee, this party is so dumb for not finding my traps"
Perception on the other hand is something that is passive. If there is a threat or something of interesting, the DM is the one who signals it is time for the PCs to roll their check. Perception checks are never made unnecessarily, if one is rolling the dice, there is an actual reason one is rolling the dice and there is a reward for a successful roll. In fact, this is so useful because even if the DM is hiding some vital information from the PCs, a good DM will say "wait, wait! before you take that action, make a perception check" and if made the DM will inform them of the trap they were about to step on or the panel on the wall they almost walked past or any other numerous "hidden" elements of the world that the Investigating player would have to be constantly taking stabs in the dark at, 98% of the time when there isn't even anything there, just jumping at every shadow for fear they might miss something important.
The former is just not fun game play and only the most hardened grognards in their OSR mindset insist on playing the game in such a regressive manner. Their party going along with 10' poles poking at everything and having special earcups so that when they listen at doors, monsters don't drill into their skulls and kill them and such not.
The vast majority has moved onto the later model which "if there is something you need to be aware of, I will tell you to roll for it"-- which is the model tied to Perception. Instead of "ha! You should have investigated the creek before you tried to wade across, take 3d6 damage!!" you get "wait, before you jump in the lake make a perception check... okay, you got it! Just as you are about to jump in, you notice there are a lot of fish with big, nasty looking teeth darting around inside."
Because the later... it just leads to a far more fast-paced, far quicker, for less mindlessly grindy game session and, frankly, a better story overall. Which is why Investigation is virtually never used in most games. Because though there are a few situations it might be useful and it might be clear that it is time to use that particular skill.. those situations are few and far between and if Perception is called to be used 20 other times the adventure, without really thinking it through... its what is going to be called for in that situation as well.
Honestly, I can barely follow half of what you’re saying.
They get an ability comparable to a class ability and it is absolute crap?
You want a Fighter Hobgoblin that is viable, and just as good as a Mountain Dwarf? Sure, I’ll throw together one real fast, just base stats though, not taking the time to list all the abilities. I’ll even throw in a non-variant human, just for fun.
Hobgoblin Fighter lv 1
Hp: 13 AC: 18
Str: 15 (+2) Dex: 10 (+0) Con 16 (+3) Int: 14 (+2) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 8 (-1)
Shield and Longsword +4 1d8+2
Dwarf Fighter lv 1
Hp: 13 AC: 18
Str: 17 (+3) Dex: 10 (+0) Con 16 (+3) Int: 13 (+1) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 8 (-1)
Shield and Longsword +5 1d8+3
Human Fighter lv 1
Hp: 12 AC: 18
Str: 16 (+3) Dex: 11 (+0) Con 15 (+2) Int: 14 (+2) Wis 13 (+1) Cha 9 (-1)
Shield and Longsword +5 1d8+3
Nearly identical, all are viable to play, I could have fun with any, even if the others were in the party. Let’s say they hit 3rd and continue being identical?
Do... you even play the game? I mean, really?
You have just demonstrated that the Hobgoblin is flat out behind the others by a -1 to all attack rolls and damage rolls and exchange for that gets.... absolutely nothing.
Oh, no-- no, let me guess. YOU are about to claim that a +1 to attack and damage in no way effects the game whatsoever. That getting a -1 to hit and damage in exchange for nothing just for having chosen the "wrong" race is a totally good deal.
I mean, you know.. that just accounts for the majority of the rolls any character is going to make in most adventures. "not a big deal". That is totally why whenever a character in any edition of D&D came across their first +1 weapon that granted them a +1 to attack and damage, they said "what is this garbage? Its completely comparable and identical to my old one that didn't have the +1 to hit and damage. Just toss it back in the garbage pile, its not even worth the weight to carry this thing back to town." Yeah, I am sure you have TONS of experience seeing that happen over and over again. Because the last thing that could ever be of value to any character would be a +1 to 75%-90% of the rolls they are going to make during the course of the game, not just on their d20s but also on their d8s/d12s.
Okay, to be fair...it isn't TOTALLY nothing.
You didn't mention that the human loses Darkvision, but gets a feat... which could net them an extra +1 bonus to one of those attributes or other significantly powerful advantage. In the very least, I think you could have used the feat to fix their con bonus to keep up with the other two in addition to giving them a fairly powerful edge, but I don't know what feat that would be off the top of my head.
The Dwarf gets advantage on poison saves and resistance to poison... and the history check on stone caverns things which, as I think I have covered is totally worthless and not even worth talking about. Also, they move 5 less feat per a move which might be worth noting.
And the Hobgoblin gets... effectively a bardic inspiration cast on them once per a short rest, but only so long as allies remain within sight.
At best I suppose we could be generous in saying that maybe these are equal? So, looking past the main attributes it is a total wash-- leaving, again, the conclusion that the Hobgoblin is down a -1 on attack and damage, i.e. 75-90% of the rolls you are going to make during the course of the game, with nothing to show for it.
If you tell someone that taking another race is like being handed a +1 magical weapon at first level and permanently being ahead on the curve like that and you lose nothing in exchange for this... just how divorced from reality need you be to call those choices "equivalent" or even "equally viable"?
[/quote]Hobgoblin Fighter Eldritch Knight lv 3
Hp: 31 AC: 18
Str: 15 (+2) Dex: 10 (+0) Con 16 (+3) Int: 14 (+2) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 8 (-1)
Shield and Longsword +4 1d8+2
Dwarf Fighter Eldritch Knight lv 3
Hp: 31 AC: 18
Str: 17 (+3) Dex: 10 (+0) Con 16 (+3) Int: 13 (+1) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 8 (-1)
Shield and Longsword +5 1d8+3
Human Fighter lv 1
Hp: 29 AC: 18
Str: 16 (+3) Dex: 11 (+0) Con 15 (+2) Int: 14 (+2) Wis 13 (+1) Cha 9 (-1)
Shield and Longsword +5 1d8+3
Of course, could have gone Battlemaster, nothing prevents it. Even fits really well, by 4
th grab a feat that includes a +1 strength, like Athlete or Heavy Armor Master to hit even numbers, unless playing the human. And you’re off to the races[/quote]
No, actually-- you couldn't. You see at least, at LEAST, with Eldritch Knight you could maybe claim that the DC of
SOME of the spells would be 1 point higher than the Dwarf. This doesn't remotely make up for the fact that all your attack and damage rolls are going to be 1 point lower and it never, ever will.
Had you gone Battlemaster? The DC for Battlemaster is based on Strength or Dexterity.
Yes, Intelligence does NOT apply. Lets make this whole thing clear-- WotC has already completely dispelled the notion that "tactical mind" or "battle tactics" remotely by any stretch of any imagination have anything to do with Intelligence or in any way relate to Intelligence. Intelligence is not applicable in any way, shape or form to any of the battle tactics that exist within the D&D game. It is Strength or Dexterity that determine them.
So had you gone Battlemaster, then not only would you be looking at a Hobgoblin Fighter here who is down -1 on 75-90% of the rolls they make during every game, but additionally has a -1 to the DC of all maneuvers they might try.
And again, the Hobgoblin here is getting NOTHING in exchange for suffering all of these setbacks. At best, you are probably looking at maybe once per a short rest making a roll that you would have made if you weren't forced to suffer a -1 penalty across everything during the whole damn game.
Your idea of what is "near identical" or "viable" is just plain flat out madness. Tell you what- next time you find yourself as a player, choose your regular race and class and then go ahead and give yourself a -2 penalty to the stat that dictates all your abilities in exchange for a +1 to Intelligence. You go ahead and try to see just how long taking a -1 to all attack rolls and damage rolls for the entirety of the game in exchange for nothing feels "identical" to you.
Also, I notice you forwent writing up the High Elf as a Dexterity Fighter to compare to these. Spoiler alert-- they are ridiculously better than all of them, especially when you look at the bonus abilities. They only suffer when you want to drop the shield and go two-handed, but instead get to be really, really good at range attacks unlike any of these options.
Now, I admit, I haven’t looked back at the preview information in a bit, so I didn’t know that Lizardfolk and Kenku (both found in the Monster Manual as Monsters) didn’t get listed as Monstrous Races. I remembered Lizardfolk getting a large write u beside Orcs and Gnolls and Yuan-TI and Illithids, you, as monsters, so I figured they were in that list as well.
But again, considering that there is a document on GM’s Guild which specifically makes it legal to play Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Yuan-Ti, and all the rest… I have to say you are dead wrong that they created these races so poorly so they would be auto-banned at all tables.
They are not banned at official tables, so Wizards must think they did something right, or they are conspiring against you, your choice I suppose.
GM's Guild has nothing to do with WotC or AL or anything else. One doesn't create a specific special category for things unless you intend to use that special category to discriminate. And given we can identify that the 5 races stuck into this category (Bugbears, Hobgoblins, Goblins, Orcs and Yuan-ti) all have racial traits that seem completely counter to the general understanding of what are supposed to be allowed for PC race abilities (Bugbears having reach and sneak attack, Goblins getting a bonus action every turn, Hobgoblin's Save Face ability being ridiculously situational and giving you a guarantee rather than a random roll the way Bless and Inspiration work, Yuan-ti having insanely powerful spell abilities at first level, etc.) suggests that they were separated away and written differently in order to make them easier to ban as a category.
Thing is though, out of the 5, Hobgoblin is the one that stands out as actually being worse at everything than the standard races while Bugbear, Goblin and Yuan-ti are incredibly overpowered in comparison. But it is also the one that would need the smallest revision in order to fix it and get it to fit the rules the standard PC races abide by.
Thing is though... its not going to be fix. WotC has the track record of never fixing these things and instead using them to just outright ban certain common races while allowing free play of weird, wonky, outlandish niche ones that bothered to design well the first time.
