D&D 5E Should D&D go away from ASIs?

[Sunseeker]

No. But not for the "awesome and fun" reason. I say no because they provide a choice. And choice is good in D&D.

Also, I don't know why anyone would argue that you may not get smarter, stronger, wiser, more charismatic or tougher as you fight monsters and gain experience. That makes no sense at all because that's how it works in real life. You go to boot camp? You can raise physical scores pretty fast with intense training. You go to college? You can raise intelligence pretty quickly (assuming the person puts in the effort). You travel the world? You can gain wisdom pretty easily. You start taking ballet? You can become pretty dexterous pretty fast with proper training. I have no idea why you would argue that doing exactly the sorts of things that would make you faster, smarter, tougher or stronger would not make you faster, smarter, tougher or stronger.

I don't see your problems with high stats either. The players are noted to be exceptions. They are Einstein. They are The Hulk. Just because you're staring at the Avengers all day long doesn't make the Avengers any less of random anomalies when compared to the general population. Statistically most people in the game world are still average.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I like the math of 5E but understand (and kind of agree with) the people who dislike how stats become so important and optimizing "requires" you to boost them. There's the (strong) argument too that your stats shouldn't change that much over time.

This is easily fixed though by having three Proficiency tracks instead of two. Call it Non-Proficient, Proficient, and (dum dum dum) Specialized.

Yes, that's right, the return of weapon specialization. Only for "all Strength-related checks".

So you Strength doesn't increase and your Encumbrance remains the same, but all your Strength skills, saves, and weapon attacks get an addition +X.

ASIs are now the choice between a Feat and increasing your generic Specialization modifier.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The combined system of ASIs and a strict cap works well to mitigate the inherent power imbalances of rolling stats. Just ASIs alone (without the strict cap) was one of the major problems with third edition, since everyone was encouraged to max out exactly one stat such that the disparity between characters in any given stat was immense. The fighter with Strength 50 might be balanced against the rogue with Dex 50 and the wizard with Int 50 (although that balance is more apparent in fourth edition), but neither of them can compete against each other within any of those arenas because the modifier overwhelms the die roll.

If you really wanted to remove ASIs (at which point the stat cap would be irrelevant), then you would need to get rid of randomly rolled stats entirely. That has its own problems, though. Point buy systems are trivial to optimize, which may be an insurmountable design obstacle for as long as each class has one primary stat. If you don't want there to be exactly one correct stat array per character concept, then you would need to redesign how stats work such that a fighter with maximum Strength would actually be balanced against one with slightly lower Strength and slightly higher Dexterity.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I think "I want to get stronger!" is a pretty basic element of the power fantasy that D&D caters to, and it's frankly kind of shocking that we didn't see an ASI-type mechanic as part of the core rules until late in the game's history.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

I don't have a problem with ASI's in isolation, but I do have a problem with their implementation. I don't like them being combined with feats for the simple reason that it encourages a narrow focus. I also don't like that there's so many of them. In my ideal version of 5e, I would separate ASI's and feats, and further silo feats into combat/exploration/social. I would give only a total of two ASI's over 20 levels. I like the +1/+1 or +2 design so would keep that. I'd probably make it one ASI at 8th and another at 16th. Then I'd probably make feats class-based, giving more combat feats to combat focused classes while still giving exploration and social feats. So a fighter might get 3 feats over 20 levels that they can spend on combat feats, but only 1 on exploration and 1 on social, whereas a bard would probably be 3 on social, 1 on exploration, 1 on combat, and so on.

 

[Garthanos]

My character has stronger will than earlier in the story ... My arbitrary saving throw went up....huh?.yes equivalent but for me one is better story guess which?

Sent from my XT1585 using EN World mobile app

 

[Krachek]

I think a feat only campain deserve a tryout.
It may produce more colorfull characters.
But mix solution can be used.
Ex. :
Force a feat choice at level 4 and let both ASI and feat at level 8.
fighter extra ASI can be forced into feat.

 

[Wulffolk]

I started a thread back in March '17 that touched on this subject. "Hate ASI's?"
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?533857-Hate-ASI-s&highlight=Hate+ASI's?
I guess I should have included a poll. ;-)

I hate ASI's and what they have done to this game. I completely understand the need for a mechanic to allow for some ability growth, but on a much more limited scale. I despise that so many players now spend more time "planning a build" that gets them to 20 in their main stat ASAP, rather than allowing the story to dictate how their character develops.

I LOVE D&D on a sentimental and nostalgic level, but I have never been happy with the game mechanics of any edition. 5e is a step in the right direction, but there are still so many things I would change, including many of D&D's most sacred cows (the 6 ability scores, wisdom, classes, and the almighty d20!)

I . . . AM . . . WULFFOLK !!!
Slayer of sacred cows!

I guess I really just need to step up and finish writing my own game system.

 

[cbwjm]

I honestly have no idea. I'm fine with the current set up, though would probably be happier with them being related to character level instead of class level, but another system could be fine. I do think there should be some way to improve stats without requiring magic as in the past but then if stats played less importance then I'd probably not even worry about that. If the range of modifiers was smaller then people probably wouldn't worry so much. If getting a stat to 20 only rewards a +3 bonus then people may be less inclined to want to boost their stats as much and so not require constant improvement of stats as they level up.

 

[Wulffolk]

Maybe I am a D&D racist, but I also hate that Halflings, or Gnomes (even worse), can have the same Strength as a Half-Orc. Or that the Dwarf can be as Dextrous as an Elf. Not only would I reduce the impact of ASI's, but I would either bring back racial penalties or increase the cost to improve abilities that should have a penalty.