D&D 5E What To Do With Racial ASIs?

[doctorbadwolf]

D&DBeyond data shows that characters are heavily skewed toward race/class combinations that have ASI synergy

Hard to conclude what you want to conclude from that, IMO, when the ability score modifiers of each race are also representative of the niche of that race. Most people want to play a big burly Barbarian, a quick nimble rogue, a strange and charismatic Sorcerer or warlock, etc.

I would posit with very high confidence that the same races would be combined with those classes at a rate well within ~20% of the current rate, if races had no ability score modifiers.

For a an example of why I think this, that is a bit of a walk, take the ranger. It isn’t in the top 4, but it also isn’t in the bottom 4, of classes being played. Wotc has also said that it’s very popular.
wotc has also said that the ranger has a very high rate of dissatisfaction. This surely means that most ranger players are playing the ranger because they want to play a ranger, even though they don’t love the execution of the mechanics of the class.
IOW, people play what they want to play, and what they want to play is largely human fighters and the iconic versions of other things, or versions from Critical Role.
Or take the note from Adam Bradford (head of dndbeyond) that the rankings of class and subclass popularity doesn’t change if you only look at people with access to everything. That pretty well disproves the idea that folks are mostly optimizing. Champion ain’t half as bad as it’s rep, but it’s definitely not the optimized choice. The ranger subclasses are Hunter and BM, often considered two of the weakest ranger subs, but also the iconic ranger archetypes.

wouldn't really rely on D&D Beyond data. A lot of people use it just to try out builds with characters they never play.

Most of their shared data these days is filtered for that, showing only active characters, not “built and forgotten” characters.
Still, my point above also stands here. I don’t think the data actually shows that people are choosing those combos due to the numbers.

He would also say no. He would tell us it is something we have never seen before and we don't know what it can do. He also despises the insight skill and tells people constantly that if we use it, we won't learn anything, because we can't logically figure things out about people we've only known for a few hours.

This is incredibly weird to me. Like, too weird to even try to analyze, really.

He knows that insight is a real life thing that can be applied to people you’ve just met, right? Like...it’s possible to figure out the mood, emotional state, and sometimes hints of the motivations of someone you’ve just met. This is objectively a thing that pesople do IRL. You can specialize in it and do it for a living, in a variety of contexts. i can’t fathom what perspective would think it’s impossible to do an every day thing that most people do nearly every time they meet a new person.

As for the nature check... huh!?

You can’t combine learning about the creatures in the world with immediate visual clues and behaviors of a creature to figure out why it is and what it can do!? Again this is possible in real life! Does he only ever use super weird extremely rare creatures of wholly alien anatomy and construction?

 

[Scott Christian]

Lucky is fine, but rerolling ones rarely comes up, especially for a class like wizard who forces saves instead of rolling to attack

If you roll a 20 sided die (say a four hour game with two combats and exploration and social) you will probably roll that die 20 times. So the odds of you rolling a 1 will come up - once a game. I can think of no other racial trait that has spreads across all three pillars that also occurs as frequently.

Hiding behind people requires stealth, not a common proficiency for wizards. Also, it would take your action in combat (meaning you didn't do anything else, like cast a spell), and doesn't work if the other person moves away (which has come up for our halfling rogue)

Nice try in the better con for Stout, Rock Gnome does the same thing. So, equal concentration and HP, but worse INT.

Dex is a useful stat, but wizards honestly need it less than a lot of other classes, and Forest Gnome can cover their dex needs if they want to go that route.

So, not so much.

While I agree with the rest of this, it is very difficult to quantify how this plays out in a game. And in the end, the game is not balanced anyway. So why does an extra % at the cost of some initiative and AC really matter. By the time you are level 8, it doesn't imho. But, I think you are correct in your assumptions about the "better" build.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Weren’t you telling me that “play with people who won’t use the rules in a way you don’t like” doesn’t really make up for flawed rules?

Fair point, at least based on how I hastily formulated it. But let me elaborate.

My observation is that there are basically three attitudes toward this:

1) People who just want to immerse in the setting and are not super fussed with optimisations. They just make the characters they like conceptually and like getting thematically appropriate capabilities. They have no issue with the rules.

2) Optimisers. They like exploring the rules and finding the strongest builds. They like finding things that synergise. They will go trough the races, classes and feats and choose most optimal combinations. They do not have a problem with the rules.

3) People who would really like to do 1 but have strong impulses to do 2. They want the rules to be changed.


Now I actually get the category 3 intellectually. I'd like to think that I have pretty good eye for noticing 'optimal' and it might be tempting to go for it. And in certain sense it might make sense to change rules to lessen the conflict. I often introduce small balance path house rules to fix small discrepancies. But when we are talking about jettisoning half of the rules of races making them samey and bland to solve a thing that basically is a player issue, I can't support that.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

BTW, one tangentially related thing I was thinking was that ASIs that you get from levelling allowing +2 kinda contribute to making 15 (and also 17) feel rather meh, and increase the feeling that 16 is the baseline. If these levelling ASI just gave +1 to all stats, then uneven stats would be much less of an issue, as person who stater with 15 would have equal bonus with one who started with 16 for half of the levels (and of course same with 16 and 17.)

So this is my rules-based solution for making the 16 feel less mandatory, don't allow +2 from levelling ASIs. Of course it evens the playing field between races with different bonuses as well as encourages more variation in attributes in general.

 

[FrogReaver]

BTW, one tangentially related thing I was thinking was that ASIs that you get from levelling allowing +2 kinda contribute to making 15 (and also 17) feel rather meh, and increase the feeling that 16 is the baseline. If these levelling ASI just gave +1 to all stats, then uneven stats would be much less of an issue, as person who stater with 15 would have equal bonus with one who started with 16 for half of the levels (and of course same with 16 and 17.)

So this is my rules-based solution for making the 16 feel less mandatory, don't allow +2 from levelling ASIs. Of course it evens the playing field between races with different bonuses as well as encourages more variation in attributes in general.

Won’t help as long as 20 is the cap.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Won’t help as long as 20 is the cap.

It will take really long time to reach the cap, if it even happens during the time frame of the campaign. So it means the uneven starting stats get to be useful for long periods during the campaign. It is the journey that matters, not the destination.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Sure, because it makes sense. And also because players have been trained since 1e to maximize stats in order to survive. 5e breaks that necessity, but people haven't been able to wrap their heads around it and incorrectly see maximized stats as the baseline, instead of exceptional.

Also, nearly every video game called an "rpg" pretty much mandates some serious optimization to succeed.

 

[Maxperson]

Also, nearly every video game called an "rpg" pretty much mandates some serious optimization to succeed.

I don't consider computer games to be RPGs, which I think you agree with since you put "" around it. You have very limited options to pick from, which aren't much different from having limited options on a Monopoly board.

 

[FrogReaver]

It will take really long time to reach the cap, if it even happens during the time frame of the campaign. So it means the uneven starting stats get to be useful for long periods during the campaign. It is the journey that matters, not the destination.

That just makes your starting score that much more important.

If I start at 14 and eventually will catch up the the guy that started at 16 that’s a fat different feel than permanently being behind due to lower starting stats.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That just makes your starting score that much more important.

If I start at 14 and eventually will catch up the the guy that started at 16 that’s a fat different feel than permanently being behind due to lower starting stats.

Yes. But you're only half the time behind the guy who started at 15.