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

[Bill Zebub]

Or maybe you just wanted to play a half-orc wizard because it adds to the characterization in the campaign? Maybe it adds to the storyline and creates an interesting conflict?

Maybe. But what's wrong with making that an intentional choice?

 

[LadyElect]

Yeah. That's why I give both.

Interesting. So you end up +2 overall ASI and a feat or +3 and a half-feat? Do you feel the need to account for that elsewhere to keep encounters level or is it not quite deep enough to have an extreme impact?

I’ve always felt that the half-feats were the most enticing as a best of both worlds sort of thing. So providing even more feat options and giving ASI increases in addition isn’t something I’d oppose.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Interesting. So you end up +2 overall ASI and a feat or +3 and a half-feat?

No. It is to go along with my other house rules. Basically the characters have slightly higher starting abilities and with the four levelling ASIs everyone gets* you gain a feat and two +1s. These cannot be stacked with each other or with a potential +1 from a feat, so each time they get ASI they can bump two or three different abilities by one. This was done to make starting with uneven abilities more enticing, to give them feats because they're fun and to support having secondary and even tertiary abilities that can be kept at decent level.

(With the fighter and rogue extra ASIs you have to choose between a feat or +1/+1, but otherwise it is the same.)

Do you feel the need to account for that elsewhere so keep encounters level or is it not quite deep enough to have an extreme impact?

I mean we started pretty recently so it hasn't actually even mattered yet. But my napkin maths say that with the limitations I have it should be fine. It basically produces more broadly competent characters but don't actually make them significantly more powerful in any one thing. Or at least so I hope...

 

[Maxperson]

So my Elven wizard who sings more beautifully than a bird, with a +2 INT and +1 Cha isn't an elf because I decided not to make him particularly graceful?

That's what you are missing Max. For you elves need to have a +2 Dex, they all have to be graceful. For a lot of us? Elves being graceful is only one of four or five different things they could be. It isn't any more important than their wisdom, their intelligence, their charisma or even their strength. Plenty of sources for elves have them stronger than humans. I don't see elves who don't have a +2 Dex as being "incomplete" because a +2 Cha and a+1 Wis or Int is just as much an "elf" as a +2 Dex is.

It's time to start accusing you of Strawman again, because I literally said the opposite of that. You altered what I said and then argued against your fictional creation. Stop it.

I don't know Max, seems like adding a floating bonus that anyone could put anywhere they like is being met with a pretty large amount of resistance and people leaving the game.

Not really. It's being met with fear or at least concern(not by me) that it will become the default for races, which would be bad. I haven't seen anyone say that there shouldn't be the optional rule to have floating bonuses if that floats(hahaha!) your boat.

Though, I will agree, it would be even harder to take a floating bonus and harden it to take it away, since there isn't really a good answer to why you couldn't just... use the floating bonus to give yourself the same stats as the hardened version.

Good answers have been given to you. Your personal preference doesn't make them bad.

Not aware of elves who can get a feat by level 1, but okay, you don't like the version with feats and don't want that to count.

It doesn't have to be at level one. No matter what level you get it at, it's a learned bonus, so it counts just the same.

How about the Mark of Finding Human (+2 Wisdom, +1 Con), the Mark of Handling Human (+2 Wisdom, +1 float), the Mark of Making Human (+2 Intelligence, +1 float), The Mark of Passage Human (+2 Dexterity, +1 Float), and the The Mark of Sentinel Human (+2 Constitution, +1 Wisdom)


Why do these official human options with their +2's not count? Because, I know you are going to say they don't, just curious what reasoning it will be. I hope it isn't "that's Eberron" because the elves and Dwarves and Halflings and Dragonborn (ect ect ect) of Eberron are still using the PHB stats.

Setting specific changes to races are not relevant. We're having a discussion about generalities.

And Dwarves get that +2 Strength, but no Powerful Build feature like Goliaths, so why does +2 mean you should get Powerful Build in one case and not the other?

It doesn't. I don't know where you are getting that from.

But, somehow, I think that 15 lbs isn't considered a massive weight advantage like that. And Goliaths being two feet taller and 100 lbs heavier should be stronger than Mountain dwarves, but they aren't.

Check out the weight classes. There's a reason why they are divided up by a few pounds and not 15. The only weight class to be more than 8 pounds heavier than the prior class is when you go from Light Heavyweight to Cruiserweight.

Boxing - Weight Classes, Divisions, Rules

Boxing - Weight Classes, Divisions, Rules: During the 19th and again at the beginning of the 20th century, the popularity of boxing brought about the formation of weight divisions other than the heavyweight class to eliminate the handicap of smaller contestants’ having to concede excessive...

www.britannica.com

Letting a dwarf get a +2 dex takes away from the elven identity

Why? As I said in a prior post, I'm not against adventurers have an extra floating +2 to represent being exceptional. Throw that into dex as a dwarf. It doesn't matter. Dwarves are hardy and get +2 con. The secondary stats are not really relevant. Heck, you can make up another dwarven subrace that gets +2 dex and it would be fine. Dex is not the stat that is part of the dwarven identity. Con is.

 

[Malmuria]

There aren't a lot of barbarian elves because they don't get a bonus to strength. So playing one is out of the norm and memorable.

With floating ASIs it is no longer out the norm. It isn't against type.

I can see the logic of ASI, among all the other abilities, accentuating an archetype, but it does not create it. Players will come to the table archetypes from other media. Elves connote Legolas and wood sprites, whereas barbarians connote visigoths and dothraki*. So I'd argue that ASI is not doing the heavy conceptual lifting in that regard. For this reason, ASI is easier for elves, dwarves, and halflings, because there is already such a repository of tropes for us to work with. As people have noted, once you get to subraces or other races the archetypes are already much less defined and more fluid.

Most of the conversation here has been the physical stats, with Str and Con accentuating the "strong and stout" races with Dex accentuating the "small and slender" races. It is more tricky, both from an in-game and out of game perspective, when it comes to the mental stats, particularly Int and Cha. In-fiction, the 5e skills associated with those stats are cultural and individual. Why are tieflings inherently more persuasive? Persuasive to whom, and about what? Similarly, aptitude with history, religion, and arcana would seem to come down to one's cultural background and individual background (e.g. level of education). Are the schools of forest gnomes (who rely on information from "small forest animals") better than those of dragonborn (who have a "continual drive for self-improvement [and] value skill and excellence in all endeavors")? Out of the fiction, the idea of inherently more or less intelligent races should be avoided, imo, as I discussed previously.

*edit: and CONAN, obviously

 

[Scribe]

Why are tieflings inherently more persuasive?

They shouldn't be. Removing my beloved -2 modifier wounds me still.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I can see the logic of ASI, among all the other abilities, accentuating an archetype, but it does not create it. Players will come to the table archetypes from other media. Elves connote Legolas and wood sprites, whereas barbarians connote visigoths and dothraki*. So I'd argue that ASI is not doing the heavy conceptual lifting in that regard. For this reason, ASI is easier for elves, dwarves, and halflings, because there is already such a repository of tropes for us to work with. As people have noted, once you get to subraces or other races the archetypes are already much less defined and more fluid.

Most of the conversation here has been the physical stats, with Str and Con accentuating the "strong and stout" races with Dex accentuating the "small and slender" races. It is more tricky, both from an in-game and out of game perspective, when it comes to the mental stats, particularly Int and Cha. In-fiction, the 5e skills associated with those stats are cultural and individual. Why are tieflings inherently more persuasive? Persuasive to whom, and about what? Similarly, aptitude with history, religion, and arcana would seem to come down to one's cultural background and individual background (e.g. level of education). Are the schools of forest gnomes (who rely on information from "small forest animals") better than those of dragonborn (who have a "continual drive for self-improvement [and] value skill and excellence in all endeavors")? Out of the fiction, the idea of inherently more or less intelligent races should be avoided, imo, as I discussed previously.

*edit: and CONAN, obviously

Agreed, and this makes fixed ASIs in general even more problematic, because if we agree that mental ASIs should be avoided it means that we have a choice of either giving physical ASIs to all races physical ASIs, or giving physical ASIs to some and to the others....something else. But if it's true that fixed ASIs are necessary to express a race's identity (which I disagree with, but it has been argued such) then that means these other races are insufficiently defined.

 

[Charlaquin]

Which edition was the best in doing design for races, in everyone's opinion?

4e, but 4e was the best edition for pretty much everything in terms of design in my opinion, to the point that one would be pretty justified in calling it over-designed. And for many the design came at the cost of a certain gameplay feel that just wasn’t worth it. It was worth it for me, but I like the feel of 5e enough that it still beats 4e for my favorite edition overall.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why do you think they are supposed to be just as powerful in combat? Winter Eladrin, by the descriptions, are not the front-line fighters of the Eladrin society - that's Summer's role.

Because they are a CR 10 monster? And they don't make good spellcasters or back-line archers either. Sure, they have the same health and AC as everyone else, but unless their entire point is to throw their two spells, then die, they are horribly designed for being an actual monster enocunter.

And, again, Autumn is a healer build, with a lot of things to make them better healers... and still a better fighter than Winter. Spring is an illusion and Deception build with a lot of spells for messing with the party.... and still a better fighter than Winter.

I mean, why make them a CR 10 monster to fight if they aren't going to be a CR 10 encounter?

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's time to start accusing you of Strawman again, because I literally said the opposite of that. You altered what I said and then argued against your fictional creation. Stop it.

You said an elf without a +2 Dex is like an incomplete painting of the Mona Lisa. How is it a strawman to say then that if I had an elf with a +2 Cha and +1 Int that they are somehow not an elf. They are incomplete according to you, not a full and true elf unless I can get a bonus to dex instead of those other bonuses I chose.

Or is an incomplete elf still a full elf?

Not really. It's being met with fear or at least concern(not by me) that it will become the default for races, which would be bad. I haven't seen anyone say that there shouldn't be the optional rule to have floating bonuses if that floats(hahaha!) your boat.

It wouldn't be bad. These fears you have about people not being able to portray the larger race "properly" are foundless.

Good answers have been given to you. Your personal preference doesn't make them bad.

The only answer I remember being given directly is "because then WoTC didn't tell me what to do". That isn't a good answer. I get that people want it prescribed, they want to be forced into the mold the company created for the races, but that doesn't make it a good reason that they can't just follow that mold without being forced into it.

And for those who are saying "But I wouldn't be able to play against archetype".. sure they can. A halfling barbarian is against archetype for the bland, pastoral farming folk whether they have a +2 strength or a -2 strength. One is just more heavily penalized. Also, there are somethings that I don't know if they should be "against archetype" why should dwarves not be wizards? What about them makes that concept somehow antithetical to their dwarfness. The scholarly study? There are only two reasons it is "against type" 1) Decades ago they couldn't do it and were anti-magic. This is no longer true anywhere in the game. 2) They don't get a +2 Int, so they are supposed to be frontliners, not mages.

And for the people who say "but I won't be able to stop myself from being a powergamer! (wilhelm scream of horror)" Then the tropes and bonuses really weren't that important to you compared to getting better numbers.

It doesn't have to be at level one. No matter what level you get it at, it's a learned bonus, so it counts just the same.

Weird how humans are the only ones that have them as a racial feature then, but whatever, goal posts are always shifting.

Setting specific changes to races are not relevant. We're having a discussion about generalities.

"These official humans don't count because they are in a setting!" You mean, the same setting that the PHB Dwarves, Elves and halflings are in?

So, Eberron is the only place in the multiverse where elves aren't elves because humans are elves? You said, to quote directly "Show me the human who gets +2 with purely racial bonuses." For someone so careful with your words you really should have been more specific if you wanted to say "Show me the human who gets +2 with purely racial bonuses, and is a general race and not a setting specific one because those don't count."

I mean, I can't use humans from a specific setting, I can't use the variant human... so what you really wanted is to say "but the baseline human in the PHB doesn't get a +2" because that is the only human you will accept in the discussion.

It doesn't. I don't know where you are getting that from.

Do you just not pay attention to your own posts? Remember this?

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

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.

Goliaths can lift twice as much as humans -> ie have powerful build
Therefore (because they have powerful build) they should get a +2 strength bonus.

You even literally say "is my argument". Your argument is that Powerful Build and +2 strength are connected, one leads to the other. But, when I show that they don't... it is a flaw in the game, the designers didn't do it right, and it is a mistake.

Check out the weight classes. There's a reason why they are divided up by a few pounds and not 15. The only weight class to be more than 8 pounds heavier than the prior class is when you go from Light Heavyweight to Cruiserweight.

Boxing - Weight Classes, Divisions, Rules

Boxing - Weight Classes, Divisions, Rules: During the 19th and again at the beginning of the 20th century, the popularity of boxing brought about the formation of weight divisions other than the heavyweight class to eliminate the handicap of smaller contestants’ having to concede excessive...

www.britannica.com

Great, so why does a creature with nearly 100 lbs on another have the exact same strength, while a creature with the exact same weight have a +1 over the other?

DnD uses boxing weights for reality, right? So why is a 40 lbs creatures at +0 strength same as a 133 lbs creature while a 165 lbs creature has a +2 and a 277 lbs creature also has a +2. Mass and height = strength, so why is this so nonsensical?

Why? As I said in a prior post, I'm not against adventurers have an extra floating +2 to represent being exceptional. Throw that into dex as a dwarf. It doesn't matter. Dwarves are hardy and get +2 con. The secondary stats are not really relevant. Heck, you can make up another dwarven subrace that gets +2 dex and it would be fine. Dex is not the stat that is part of the dwarven identity. Con is.

And what if it isn't? What if I don't want a +2 Con for my dwarf?

I mean, you are willing to give every PC an additional +2 over and beyond anything their race has, just to try and hold onto these stereotypes that... don't matter.

Elves can still be more dexterous on average, even with floating scores, just like people from Japan tend to be shorter than average, despite still being human like the rest of us. You don't have to lose the perception of the global population, just because we change how we do PCs.