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

[Chaosmancer]

Congrats! You can find some similarities. Nobody is arguing that you can't do that, though. We're saying that stat bonuses serve to help differentiate races. So while kenku and elves are both good with bows, neither can match hobgoblins or warforged for endurance. That's a difference. Making all races the same with identical floating bonuses for all, homogenizes the races and makes them more human.

Why can't an elf match a hobgoblin in endurance?

Besides, the entire point I was responding to was that these bonuses help define the race. But, if asked who the best archers are, I'm not going to say Kobolds, despite them having the same +2 Dex as Elves. Or goblins. Or halflings... so how is it the +2 Dex that makes Elves the best archers?

The entire system seems backwards to me, we declared them the best at something, gave them a +2, and now people are saying that the +2 means they are the best at something, but that's never how it worked. We never went and observed an elf in the wild to determine that they had a +2 and then determined that meant they were excellent archers.

That's a very easy question to answer. The reason is not the technical aspect of hard code vs. reversing the hard code. Those are identically easy. The reason it's harder is pushback. Humans as a species resent having things taken away, so it's FAR easier to take the hard code and make it floating(loosen restrictions), than to take away the floating ASI's and hard code them(add restrictions).

In short, the answer to your question of "how?" is human nature.

So it is easier as a player to argue to break the rules (go from hard code to floating) than it is to argue to follow the rules? (Use floating to match the hard code)

Somehow, that doesn't seem to make sense.

My bad. I've only seen one non-variant human, so I forgot that they get +1 to all stats as a base

Seems everyone forgets that

That's why for balance reasons you just give Goliaths a +2 and be done with it.

It matters when you realize that Goliaths should hit hard than humans due to being stronger. Perhaps they should have +3 to strength and no +1.

How is Goliaths being able to lift twice what humans can a tautology? From where I'm sitting, that's a fact.

You broke the quote in the wrong place. And again, you are conflating two things.


A goliath with a +2 strength is not lifting twice what a human lifts. A +2 strength is 60 lbs, that takes the goliath scale to (10-37) if you want to be technical. Powerful Build gives you a +0 strength, it is a completely separate ability, but is also would take a goliath who is identical to a human (ie does not have the +2 strength) and make their scale (16 - 72)

In other words, that +2 strength does not make Goliaths super strong. Powerful Build does that. The +2 Strength is nearly meaningless and clutching on and saying that the difference between (8-36) and (10-37) is super massive and defining is a head scratcher. It means nothing.

No. That's not my argument. Goliaths can lift twice what humans can(fact), making them much stronger than humans(fact), therefore they should get a +2 strength bonus is my argument.

Then take away powerful build, the ability that actually lets them lift twice what a human can. Oh wait. Then you wouldn't have an argument. Because your argument is based on something that isn't true.

Loxodon get a +2 Con, +1 Wis, they can also lift twice what a human can because they have powerful build. The +2 strength doesn't apply at all. Or if it does, then Loxodon are supposed to also have a +2 strength.

It was working before. Your preference for floating ASI's doesn't break the game as it was run prior. Nothing broken=nothing to fix.

No, it wasn't working for me.

Physiology doesn't change in 100 years, let alone so drastically. She is not evidence that somehow women were stronger than men 100 years ago.

Cool beans. That doesn't change my argument or the facts.

It is impossible. At least at the top. It's a fact that training methods and achieving top human performance has improved drastically even over the last few decades, let alone 100 years. In 1989 the gap for 82.5k(weight of lifter) was Women: 210kg Men :390kg. So now you're basically arguing that physiology changed over 70 years. It didn't.

Do me a favor. In forty years, check and see how many world records have been broken. Because I'm willing to bet that just like the previous 40 years, where we had achieved the top human performance and reached the peak of what was possible, that in 40 years time we'll have people breaking those records and setting a new standard for the peak of what is humanly possible.

And, again, my point was never that physiology has changed (though it does make you wonder how we keep finding world records broken every 3 to 5 years) but that it seems silly to say that something is utterly impossible. It was impossible yesterday for a man to lift as much as they can lift today, so why are so confident in saying that what men can lift today is impossible for a woman to lift tomorrow? Improbable? Sure. Impossible? I don't feel comfortable making that assertion.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Absolutely the bolded section.

Ok. Now I think I've finally got it. Thanks.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Literally nobody has argued otherwise.

Yes they have. They have argued that because bears (goliaths) are stronger than humans that horses (elves) must be weaker.

After all, everything is a different species, it isn't like we can easily point to horses that are incredibly fast and horses that are incredibly strong.

Or dogs that have incredibly endurance and dogs that have a superior tracking ability.

Or bears that are incredibly good at climbing, and bears that are incredibly strong.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It doesn't matter whether you have stats for them. In a game where elven stats aren't human stats, those elves for which you don't have stats for are still on average more dexterous than humans.

Sure, but is that because of floating dexterity modifers that happened to coalescence into a pre-disposition for dexterity, or because of hard-coded modifiers that could never be any different?

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, but is that because of floating dexterity modifers that happened to coalescence into a pre-disposition for dexterity, or because of hard-coded modifiers that could never be any different?

It has to be because of hard coding. It can't be the former, because with floating bonuses literally every race has the same "pre-disposition" for dex as elves would.

 

[Scribe]

Or dogs that have incredibly endurance and dogs that have a superior tracking ability.

Really? You dont think such a thing can be done? How about we look at Tigers, compared to say, a Caracal. Both are cats. Why cannot the Caracal be more powerful than the Tiger?

 

[dave2008]

He's right and wrong. He's right in that adventurers differ from the normal populations. He's wrong in that they differ completely from their race. An elven adventurer will still have +2 to dex. He's just more likely to have a 20 dex than some Joe Shmoe farmer elf. Adventurers have higher stats to begin with, but all else being equal(adventurer human vs. adventurer elf), the elf will have a higher dex on average than the human will.

And you are wrong for assuming that because a character chooses a +2 in Strength instead of Dex that means it is completely different from their race.

With a +2 to dex an elf has a range from 5 to 20 for its Dex score, with an average of 12.5. And adventuring PC will most likely have a minimum stat of 8 (well within the range for an elf) and is also pretty likely to have a Dex score of 12 or higher. The "strength" elf adventurer would be exceptionally strong for an elf but average (or a little better) in Dex when compared to the typical elf. That is hardly completely different from their race.

 

[Maxperson]

Why can't an elf match a hobgoblin in endurance?

Because elves aren't as hardy.

Besides, the entire point I was responding to was that these bonuses help define the race. But, if asked who the best archers are, I'm not going to say Kobolds, despite them having the same +2 Dex as Elves. Or goblins. Or halflings... so how is it the +2 Dex that makes Elves the best archers?

Elves really should have retained the +1 with bows that they used to have. They are no longer the best archers, but then I'm not arguing that they are.

So it is easier as a player to argue to break the rules (go from hard code to floating) than it is to argue to follow the rules? (Use floating to match the hard code)

Somehow, that doesn't seem to make sense.

It doesn't make sense, because that's not my argument.

Seems everyone forgets that

It's easy to forget when in games with feats, variant humans get picked the vast majority of the time.

You broke the quote in the wrong place. And again, you are conflating two things.

I'm not conflating anything. You misrepresented my argument and I corrected you on it. There's no tautology in my argument and my argument is based on fact.

Then take away powerful build, the ability that actually lets them lift twice what a human can. Oh wait. Then you wouldn't have an argument. Because your argument is based on something that isn't true.

Take away the powerful build ability and they aren't twice as strong, but they would still have a huge size advantage which is appropriately represented by a strength bonus. My argument doesn't change. The silliness with a 70whatever strength is all that changes, but that was your argument in the first place, not mine.

Loxodon get a +2 Con, +1 Wis, they can also lift twice what a human can because they have powerful build. The +2 strength doesn't apply at all. Or if it does, then Loxodon are supposed to also have a +2 strength.

They really should, yes.

No, it wasn't working for me.

Only because you preferred something else, not because it was somehow inherently broken. "Broken because I don't like it." does not make something broken.

Do me a favor. In forty years, check and see how many world records have been broken. Because I'm willing to bet that just like the previous 40 years, where we had achieved the top human performance and reached the peak of what was possible, that in 40 years time we'll have people breaking those records and setting a new standard for the peak of what is humanly possible.

False Equivalences are false. World records get broken as we get better with refining our training techniques, food intake, etc. Not because suddenly physiology drastically changes in a matter of a few decades.

 

[dave2008]

And I don't find it more interesting toincrease the cost of playing a wizard if I don't have a +2 Int.

Just because you don't, doesn't mean others don't too. I have seen many a post on these forums about people have the most fun playing against the grain. So it may not be valid for you, but it is for some (of course you can do the same thing with a floating stat too - just put in a stat that doesn't help your classs).

 

[Yaarel]

Wood elves and Grugach elves were very different. I would prefer to carve out another elven subtype for the Grugach, than to mix the wood elf into something it isn't. 5e got it wrong and the fix isn't to add strength to wood elves.

In 5e, the wood elf and grugach elf are the same thing.

Therefore, to mechanically express the 5e Players Handbook description, requires the wood elf to float where the ability score improvements go. The +2 requires fluidity.

As a DM, there can be wood elf cultures that are grugach who tend slightly more toward the +2 to Strength, while other cultures to Dexterity, Wisdom, or even Constitution. Any individual in a particular elf community can statistically deviate significantly from the average of that community. All of these superhuman abilities are potentially, innately, possible. The 5e wood elf needs floating ability score improvements.



Similarly, the Drow has a complex D&D tradition. They are Clerics favoring high Wisdom. The 1e drow has an average Wisdom of 14, something like a +2 to the Wisdom score. By 3e there are superlatively charismatic. The Wizards ("strong magic users") imply Intelligence, and the 1e drow is highly intelligent, 16 on average. Meanwhile, the drow is superlatively dexterous. Really any of these abilities − Dex, Int, Wis, Cha − is the "essence" of the D&D drow tradition. When a player chooses a drow character, the player needs to able to pick which kind of drow archetype they want to explore.



Every 5e elf, whether high elf, wood elf, or drow elf, requires floating ability score improvements to accurately safeguard the D&D elf traditions of earlier editions, as well as mechanically express the current 5e Players Handbooks elf description. The elf is a plurality.