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

[Charlaquin]

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.

Then that’s the source of disagreement. You see racial ability score increases as “half of the rules of races” and their removal as “making them samey and bland.” I see racial ability score increases as the least interesting thing about races, providing nothing but a flavorless boost to some boring numbers. Removing them would have close to zero impact on my perception of the uniqueness of the races. In fact, it might actually make them feel more unique because the least interesting thing about them would not longer be the most significant mechanical consideration.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Additionally, some

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.

Also, some players don't optimize, but play with others who do. Most of these people still want to play a character that's effective at combat, but will nonetheless fall behind the optimizes. Making sure easy synergies exist makes the discrepancy less egregious than it would be otherwise.

 

[FrogReaver]

Then that’s the source of disagreement. You see racial ability score increases as “half of the rules of races” and their removal as “making them samey and bland.” I see racial ability score increases as the least interesting thing about races, providing nothing but a flavorless boost to some boring numbers. Removing them would have close to zero impact on my perception of the uniqueness of the races. In fact, it might actually make them feel more unique because the least interesting thing about them would not longer be the most significant mechanical consideration.

You can at least understand others feel differently. Why insist on a change that’s going to detract from the game for them?

 

[DND_Reborn]

I really don't think majority of players either understand or care about the sort of issues we're talking about here.

100% agree. I can tell you at our tables (out of the 9-10 players or so, some come and go...), it is only myself and our main DM. That's it.

Now, when we discuss these points and bring them up to the others, they are like "oh, yeah, that makes sense, I just never bothered to think about it."

We played 5E for a long time completely RAW without any house-rules or homebrew and it played fine. I just look for two things primarily: how to speed up game play and make the game more challenging (without reverting to throwing strong stuff at us). Other than that, it is mostly just because I enjoy tweaking the game to make it more of what I want to play.

As an aside, only 1 player out of both the groups I am in uses D&D Beyond-- the guy who loves to min/max and look for optimal builds.

 

[TwoSix]

Then that’s the source of disagreement. You see racial ability score increases as “half of the rules of races” and their removal as “making them samey and bland.” I see racial ability score increases as the least interesting thing about races, providing nothing but a flavorless boost to some boring numbers. Removing them would have close to zero impact on my perception of the uniqueness of the races. In fact, it might actually make them feel more unique because the least interesting thing about them would not longer be the most significant mechanical consideration.

My personal take is that I'd split the difference here. Ability score bonuses are the most impactful distinction between the races, because they channel the race into certain class choices which then indirectly provides a lot of flavor. But I'd certainly argue that the biggest distinction between races is simply our shared tropes and knowledge of what the race is supposed to represent, and those could be easily represented by non-numerical features.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Also, some players don't optimize, but play with others who do. Most of these people still want to play a character that's effective at combat, but will nonetheless fall behind the optimizes. Making sure easy synergies exist makes the discrepancy less egregious than it would be otherwise.

Sure, but I really don't think this produces such big discrepancies that it would be a problem. In some older editions it might have been.

 

[FrogReaver]

My personal take is that I'd split the difference here. Ability score bonuses are the most impactful distinction between the races, because they channel the race into certain class choices which then indirectly provides a lot of flavor. But I'd certainly argue that the biggest distinction between races is simply our shared tropes and knowledge of what the race is supposed to represent, and those could be easily represented by non-numerical features.

If it’s about shared tropes there’s nothing that represents The trope of hardy dwarves more than a con bonus. There’s nothing that Represents the trope of strong orcs better than a str bonus.

I understand we could make up other abilities to fill in for these raw bonuses but that seems to be moving somewhat away from tropes and we would have to do so mostly from scratch.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If it’s about shared tropes there’s nothing that represents The trope of hardy dwarves more than a con bonus. There’s nothing that Represents the trope of strong orcs better than a str bonus.

While you have a point I think the design of 5E changed some of those and how we can represent them.

For instance, "hardy" dwarves could be expanded to not just Poison for Dwarven Resilience, but other things as well, and even conditions, or giving dwarves a free level of exhaustion. Orcs could have been a race with powerful build, or even more grant them advantage on STR checks X times per long rest? Maybe orcs could add their proficiency bonus (or double it) when making STR checks instead of advantage?

There are a bunch of mechanics already in the game that are under-utilized IMO and many racial traits could use them. I think they would be more imaginative than simply an ASI.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If it’s about shared tropes there’s nothing that represents The trope of hardy dwarves more than a con bonus. There’s nothing that Represents the trope of strong orcs better than a str bonus.

I understand we could make up other abilities to fill in for these raw bonuses but that seems to be moving somewhat away from tropes and we would have to do so mostly from scratch.

I have heard a fair amount about expanding the racial abilities in lieu of ASIs to make each race feel unique. What would that look like? Anyone have ideas in that direction?

 

[FrogReaver]

While you have a point I think the design of 5E changed some of those and how we can represent them.

For instance, "hardy" dwarves could be expanded to not just Poison for Dwarven Resilience, but other things as well, and even conditions, or giving dwarves a free level of exhaustion. Orcs could have been a race with powerful build, or even more grant them advantage on STR checks X times per long rest? Maybe orcs could add their proficiency bonus (or double it) when making STR checks instead of advantage?

There are a bunch of mechanics already in the game that are under-utilized IMO and many racial traits could use them. I think they would be more imaginative than simply an ASI.

When you leave off half my quote you leave off half my point. I addressed all this in the part you left off.