D&D 5E (Tasha's) Decoupling racial abilities--cautionary tale

[Sir Brennen]

[...] As much as I'm for Roleplaying, I'll admit that with 5E, it made sense to pick a race that had it's ability score modifiers be the ones that your Class(sub) favored. Which is a moot point if one of the rule options in Tasha's is replacing the Class Modifier Reliance with your Proficiency score. Which was something they did in a couple of the more recent UA's.

That'd fix some things that are X times a day, or X rounds, where X is an Attribute modifier, but things like Attacks, Skills or DC's rely on Prof. + Ability, so reliance on attribute can't be fixed in that way. But as you say, it does open up other possibilities.

(And I do like the UAs that tied certain numbers to Proficiency rather than Attribute bonuses. Built in scaling instead of players trying to front-load their characters.)

 

[Parmandur]

To be fair, if a player expresses outrage that I'm allowing an option "not in the book", they can get the heck out of my game.

You are not wrong, but that's a little easier said than done in certain social circumstances (these players were siblings, and related to me...).

 

[Parmandur]

If you have the Wildemount book, you can give her the Hollow One Supernatural Gift. Your classified as Undead via type but you still keep your racial abilities and scores.

The Hollowed One, the Pallid Elf, and the Lotusden Halflings all strike me now as possibly being results of this Lineage system: none of them appears in the show...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

sure sure. And they promised Oceans 11 when they were talking about Waterdeep Heist.

Sure, and they could be completely lying their asses off, but assuming they're lying their asses off and speculating on the basis that it's a PO-like fiddly and abuse-able points system, which by no definition was straightforward or simple, seems like pretty wild behaviour.

It doesn't matter whether it's points or pools.

The point is that WotC already designs lineages and classes and subclasses by looking at like vs like features for balance. Spells, feats, ability score modifiers, and proficiencies are basic benchmarks that can be weighed against one another, while ribbons are essentially tax-free.

They're giving us some sort of build-a-bear lineage system, and that means that the features have weight, they're not just equally replaceable. You can hide the weights by pooling types of abilities together, but if you're saying "If you choose Darkvision, you don't get x bonus feature" then it's point buy, just with a friendly face on it.

This is actually not necessarily true.

You're making an assumption. You're assuming that the pools will be tightly balanced against each other. That's not necessarily the case. The pools may well be designed more around what makes sense, rather than tight balance. And your "pools are just point buy with a friendly face" is a meaningless statement. That's like saying "cars are just two motorcycles with a shell over them!" or something. Pools don't function the same way as point-buy. Particularly not if you don't try and tightly balance them, but instead work thematically or whatever.

Indeed, it's hard to see how they even could do pools and do them as tightly balanced as you're suggesting (which is basically that they're all super-balanced little packages, where all the options for a given pool might as well say "15pts" next to them), because the races themselves are just nowhere near that well-balanced right now.

If we tried to do a fairly objective point-buy system on the existing races, where, say, a Wood Elf was like 50 points, then I daresay that we could probably value other races between about 55 and 20 points, maybe even lower. I don't see how they could really apply a "hidden" points-based system to that unless they're just going to massively re-jig every race.

Now, you may be right - if they do what you're suggesting, then it will matter less, except the system will be a lot more accessible (which is a legitimate gain). But you are assuming to get there.

Also as @FrogReaver points out, packaging stuff together prevents one of the worst kind of min-maxing, which is dumping a bunch of minor-but-perhaps-flavourful stuff in order to purchase one OP thing. That plus the increased accessibility, mean that there is a meaningful difference between point-buy and pools of packages, even in your scenario.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

A gnome has the same attribute range for STR as a goliath. It's just dumb. It doesn't really matter anymore what WOTC does.

I think it’s dumb too, but I also think it’s fine for a mass market product. That’s so easy to house rule if someone wants to.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, and they could be completely lying their asses off, but assuming they're lying their asses off and speculating on the basis that it's a PO-like fiddly and abuse-able points system, which by no definition was straightforward or simple, seems like pretty wild behaviour.



This is actually not necessarily true.

You're making an assumption. You're assuming that the pools will be tightly balanced against each other. That's not necessarily the case. The pools may well be designed more around what makes sense, rather than tight balance. And your "pools are just point buy with a friendly face" is a meaningless statement. That's like saying "cars are just two motorcycles with a shell over them!" or something. Pools don't function the same way as point-buy. Particularly not if you don't try and tightly balance them, but instead work thematically or whatever.

Indeed, it's hard to see how they even could do pools and do them as tightly balanced as you're suggesting (which is basically that they're all super-balanced little packages, where all the options for a given pool might as well say "15pts" next to them), because the races themselves are just nowhere near that well-balanced right now.

If we tried to do a fairly objective point-buy system on the existing races, where, say, a Wood Elf was like 50 points, then I daresay that we could probably value other races between about 55 and 20 points, maybe even lower. I don't see how they could really apply a "hidden" points-based system to that unless they're just going to massively re-jig every race.

Now, you may be right - if they do what you're suggesting, then it will matter less, except the system will be a lot more accessible (which is a legitimate gain). But you are assuming to get there.

Also as @FrogReaver points out, packaging stuff together prevents one of the worst kind of min-maxing, which is dumping a bunch of minor-but-perhaps-flavourful stuff in order to purchase one OP thing. That plus the increased accessibility, mean that there is a meaningful difference between point-buy and pools of packages, even in your scenario.

Yes, this is all quite right. In addition, a pool system that follows a narrative life-path, as with the XGtE material the journalists have compared this section to, could really help most people quickly come up with something that makes sense and has a story, which in my experience is somewhat problematic with a true point buy system like GURPS or HERO.

 

[MarkB]

Still less egregious than promoting Out of the Abyss as D&D Alice in Wonderland.

Or Rime of the Frostmaiden as D&D The Thing.

Spoiler

A few weeks from now this comment will either look amazingly prescient or gratuitously cynical.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

come up with something that makes sense and has a story, which in my experiwtnce is somewhat problematic with a true point buy system like GUTPS or HERO.

Yeah "somewhat problematic" is if anything understating matters. The ridiculous hoops of backstory I've seen players try to jump through in order to justify optimized characters in point-buy systems (even WW's limited point-buy) have been pretty berserk, over the years. I've been guilty of it myself - one Werewolf character I made had a backstory so complex to justify their traits (which were themselves chosen largely for utility, rather than making sense) that I actually got bored of playing them before I even got into a game.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I support the idea to can change the racial traits to avoid some PC races to be typecasted, for example the gnomes, or because I like the lore but not the racial traits, fo example the shen/spiritfolk from Oriental Adventures, or to change some race to can use a different class, for example a hobgobling with martial maneuvers, or a gith subrance with incarnum soulmelds instead psionic talents.

 

[Undrave]

I think it’s dumb too, but I also think it’s fine for a mass market product. That’s so easy to house rule if someone wants to.

It's not like PCs aren't inherently exceptional. If your Gnome makes it to 20 STR, it doesn't mean EVERY gnome can do it or even that there are that many others with that scores out there. The PC is an outlier. Plus, they still can't use Heavy Weapons and the Goliath still has more carrying capacity and, I think, better jumping and stuff? So, even though they both have '20 STR', they can't apply that strength the same way.

Yes, this is all quite right. In addition, a pool system that follows a narrative life-path, as with the XGtE material the journalists have compared this section to, could really help most people quickly come up with something that makes sense and has a story, which in my experiwtnce is somewhat problematic with a true point buy system like GUTPS or HERO.

So, like a simplified 'Traveller' system? I could see a thing where you just answer a few questions we've discussed in the past: What specie were you born as? Where were you born? What sort of upbringing did you have? What did you do before being an adventurer?

And then at the end you have your character. Maybe even there's enough options that you could roll for it.