D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)

[Chaosmancer]

This thread brought up biological essentialism and biological determinism. There's another concept that seems to be getting lumped in with them and maybe it belongs or maybe it already has another name.

So far all the explanations of essentialism and determinism have been at the individual level. However, can such ideas not also be applied to groups? As someone previously noted, 'the available evidence shows that the group of all men is essentially and deterministically better at an activity like weight lifting than the group of all women' (at least with respect to the amount of weight lifted). If that shouldn't be called biologic essentialism or determinism then what should it be called?

Because up till now I've used those terms to describe that phenomenon (and others) and I'm thinking now that maybe I'm not the only one and maybe that is part of the broader disconnect in these discussions?

Well, as I stated earlier in the thread, when I started looking into it it seems that Biological Essentialism is an idea that directly ties biology to culture. Which doesn't apply either at the individual or group level. There is also the concept, much older and harder to grasp, that it is somehow involving an "unchanging essence" of the creature in question. And that again just doesn't seem to apply, I cannot think of any "unchanging essence of maleness" that is logically coherent and doesn't lead to toxicity to be discussed as such.

What we have is that if we compare a man and a woman, of the same build and the same age, who have the same nutritional diet and exercise routine, and are both at the same level of health you are likely to see that the man has more upper body strength, while the woman has more core strength in her legs. Which highlights two things to my mind. 1) If any of those criteria shift, the results may shift. 2) It isn't "strength" but the specific muscle groups you are measuring.

So, is there a term for this? Not really to my knowledge, other than Gender Dimorphism.

Also, side note, if we take the Olympic Gold medal numbers from earlier in this thread and use them to compare men and women's strength we get the following results.

Women 320 kg, Men 488 kg, that is (rounding) Women 706 lbs and men 1076 lbs. Translating into DnD Strength scores of Women 24 str and Men 36 str which is a difference of 12 pts. So, the biological difference between men and women in the IRL human population (with regards to weightlifting) is six times larger than the difference between a halfling and a goliath. This level of "biological difference" between DnD "Species" is rather minuscule. And no, that doesn't mean I think we should give Goliaths a +6 and halfings a -4 and try and make it so a strength based halfling is impossible and a strength based goliath is the only strength character that matters. I'm just saying that this +2 isn't about biology. Because, biologically speaking, it is a tiny difference. It is symbolic more than anything else.

 

[Scribe]

For you to - now you can put them where you think they fit not WotC.

That's the problem, Wizards won't define it going forward, despite that being the 5e design template.

A lack of defined framework is never what I want. I want it defined by Wizards, again, like it was originally.

 

[dave2008]

That's the problem, Wizards won't define it going forward, despite that being the 5e design template.

A lack of defined framework is never what I want. I want it defined by Wizards, again, like it was originally.

I see, that is not what I want (what I want is pretty fringe). I prefer the new approach were they basically say it can be whatever you want. That way i get less pushback when I make it whatever I want anyway! I mean my preference is much more restricted than base 5e allows (or this variant really). So if WotC doesn't want to define it, that is one less thing for me to worry about.

Sorry things going forward may not be what you want, but you still have your PHB! However, I guess I can't feel to bad for you as 5e never had what I want!

 

[Scribe]

I see, that is not what I want (what I want is pretty fringe). I prefer the new approach were they basically say it can be whatever you want.

You say this as if it's new. It was literally always possible. It was then codified as an option 'sanctioned' by Tasha's, but that just wasn't good enough.

Instead, what we had and some enjoy, needs to be officially removed, for others to be satisfied. I must lose, for others to be happy, yet I'm happy just having multiple options.

I'm not asking for you to feel bad for me. I would like people to at least understand why I want things to remain without resorting to passive aggressive sniping (not to say you are BTW) but we don't all get what we want do we.

 

[dave2008]

You say this as if it's new. It was literally always possible. It was then codified as an option 'sanctioned' by Tasha's, but that just wasn't good enough.

Instead, what we had and some enjoy, needs to be officially removed, for others to be satisfied. I must lose, for others to be happy, yet I'm happy just having multiple options.

Yes, but you can still say the ability scores are hard coded. No one is stopping you and they are still there in 95%+ of the races published so far.

Also, why do you say they are being removed? Are the removing them from future printings of the PHB? I know this is not an EV1 debacle where they reclaim the old PHB's and destroy them. So as far as I can tell nothing is being removed.

I'm not asking for you to feel bad for me. I would like people to at least understand why I want things to remain without resorting to passive aggressive sniping (not to say you are BTW) but we don't all get what we want do we.

We do not. I would personally like much more restrictive racial ability scores, but instead of bonuses and penalties I would use limits. Right now a halfling and goliath can both have the same max strength - without any magic. I would cap ability scores rather than apply bonuses. Something like:

Halfling: Max Str = 16
Human: Max Str = 18
Goliath: Max Str = 20

The only way to overcome these limits is through magic: magic items or supernatural gifts or epic boons.

 

[Scribe]

Yes, but you can still say the ability scores are hard coded. No one is stopping you and they are still there in 95%+ of the races published so far.

Also, why do you say they are being removed? Are the removing them from future printings of the PHB? I know this is not an EV1 debacle where they reclaim the old PHB's and destroy them. So as far as I can tell nothing is being removed.

We do not. I would personally like much more restrictive racial ability scores, but instead of bonuses and penalties I would use limits. Right now a halfling and goliath can both have the same max strength - without any magic. I would cap ability scores rather than apply bonuses. Something like:

Halfling: Max Str = 16
Human: Max Str = 18
Goliath: Max Str = 20

The only way to overcome these limits is through magic: magic items or supernatural gifts or epic boons.

They are being removed going forward, you won't see ASI on the new PC options in Strixhaven or what it's called.

I too add caps on my system, clearly you are a person of culture.

 

[Malmuria]

If I had my way, I would have it broken down 3 ways.

A: 1 ASI for your race/lineage/species, and its limited to up to 3 of the abilities. (Elves wouldnt get Con as an option, Dwarves wouldnt get Dex, Halflings wouldnt get Str, etc).
B: 1 ASI for your background. Lets say Criminal Background: Deception (Cha) or Stealth (Dex).
C: 1 ASI for your Class. Rogue which provides an additional +1 Dex, +1 Con, or +1 Cha

Now, in my personal world (aka my games) I go further, but that would certainly be an acceptable compromise to me. Feats, or Paragon type abilities from past editions, are all good levers we can pull to further differentiate the various PC options at a crunch level.

So your character could be a dwarf rogue with the criminal background, and still get asi for dex and proficiency for stealth? I don't get how that makes your dwarf feel more like a dwarf at the table, other than you theoretically know you could have played a halfling rouge with an even larger initial dex advantage. No one is going to know or care about that difference in play. This is especially the case if your asi is just a +1, which might be totally meaningless given the way ability modifiers work.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So your character could be a dwarf rogue with the criminal background, and still get asi for dex and proficiency for stealth? I don't get how that makes your dwarf feel more like a dwarf at the table, other than you theoretically know you could have played a halfling rouge with an even larger initial dex advantage. No one is going to know or care about that difference in play. This is especially the case if your asi is just a +1, which might be totally meaningless given the way ability modifiers work.

People seem to love inventing these convoluted ASI assigning methods where you get ASIs from your races, classes, backgrounds and starsigns, that ultimately end up basically meaning that you get whatever ASIs you want wherever you want.

 

[Charlaquin]

People seem to love inventing these convoluted ASI assigning methods where you get ASIs from your races, classes, backgrounds and starsigns, that ultimately end up basically meaning that you get whatever ASIs you want wherever you want.

Because such systems give you the flavor of all these things having bonuses (e.g. dwarves are strong and tough so they all get a bonus to strength and con) while still functionally allowing you to play the character you want to play without being at a disadvantage.

 

[billd91]

We do not. I would personally like much more restrictive racial ability scores, but instead of bonuses and penalties I would use limits. Right now a halfling and goliath can both have the same max strength - without any magic. I would cap ability scores rather than apply bonuses. Something like:

Halfling: Max Str = 16
Human: Max Str = 18
Goliath: Max Str = 20

The only way to overcome these limits is through magic: magic items or supernatural gifts or epic boons.

On that score, I'm absolutely of the opposite opinion. I very much dislike differing limits when comparing character options. I'd prefer that there be different costs to get there. I don't want to limit my players' potential end points on any stat by their choice of race, I want their choice to affect how they get there.