D&D 5E Wow! No more subraces. The Players Handbook races reformat to the new race format going forward.

[UngeheuerLich]

Really? Adding a simple +2 = jumbled mess to you.

No. You didn't get that right.
It is the Idea to use two different methods to achieve the same goal instead of focussing on the better one.
Of you do that in many places and you get your mess.

 

[Maxperson]

No. You didn't get that right.
It is the Idea to use two different methods to achieve the same goal instead of focussing on the better one.
Of you do that in many places and you get your mess.

Ahh, it's you who didn't get that right. It's not two separate methods to achieve one goal. It's a single combined method to achieve the goal. Chocolate is good. Peanut butter is good. Combine them and you get Reese's Peanut Butter Cups which are amazing.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Correct. Now that we both agree that I said that it wasn't...

Correct. Now that I agree that we are talking about this...

Stronger hits more effectively, though. That's the thing about strength. Get yourself punched by someone who can bench 500 pounds and by someone who can only bench 250 and see which is more effective.

But the 500 pound guy should not automatically be able to aim better.
Now we run into the problem that both things rely on the same stat.
You may now counter that the 500 pund guy might be able to overcome armor by brute force.
Then I counter that he might be twice as inefficient against the unarmored guy.

The question is: do you want that kind of granularity? Yes? Go to 3.x with touch AC and size penalties and so on.

You may now say that you want 5.5 to adress that.

Yes, I agree that you can hope so, but I don't think you will be lucky in that regard. I also think that taking a single little detail out of all the things that would need to be done to make your Ideas work coherently is bad. So in my not so humble opinion it is better to not add +2 to strength, because alone it does not achieve what you want, because it does not synergize well with the rest of the system.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Ahh, it's you who didn't get that right. It's not two separate methods to achieve one goal. It's a single combined method to achieve the goal. Chocolate is good. Peanut butter is good. Combine them and you get Reese's Peanut Butter Cups which are amazing.

No. It is like building a tower half with lego and half with wooden bricks. It might work, but it is instable.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Thats not the same thing.

The argument is not that there are ways to make rules beyond ASI. Obviously there are. The argument is that you can do both.

I don't agree with that. I don't want racial mechanics that push you into different classes. I want to be able to play a Harengon Barbarian who still is quick and dexterous from their racial features, but also is a barbarian. I don't want to be pushed into the Rogue, Bard, or Ranger class by a +X bonus to my character's Dexterity score, because I would rather have more interesting and unique racial features that benefited me regardless of my class. Having both is . . . a bit redundant, IMO, and still pushes you into a certain class, which was one of the main complaints that people had about the Racial ASI system.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

@Maxperson
To help you get the Idea of strength as relative measurement:

Str just tells us, how muscular you look.
Does a giant (or goliath) wizard really look muscular or can they be very slim and thin? If you compare them with a human wizard, do they generally look equally strong? Yes? Same strength...

Actually they need to be stronger to support their own weight, but that would not help them being better at hitting things, but they can carry more weight than someone who is smaller.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The rogue class with virtually no exceptions is populated by high dex people.

So? That's not an argument against mine. The point is that those features are beneficial to your character even without having high DEX, and exist without just straight-up adding a bonus to your Dexterity score. The point is what the features accomplish, not who plays them.

If it were a strength class and gave those abilities, it would be as dumb a combo as the racial abilities without racial bonuses are.

No. The Strength class would still make use of Evasion, and Uncanny Dodge, and Cunning Action. Yes, Evasion is more effective for people with high DEX, but it benefits you whether or not you have a high DEX score.

The point is "these features are tied to a certain theme [agility], and accomplish that theme without giving you a bonus to the relevant ability score [Dexterity]". You can accomplish the theme of a race without pushing them into a certain class-race combo, more interestingly than just an added 5% chance of succeeding with stuff tied to that Ability Score, and in a way that can be mechanically different from just an added 5% chance to succeed at that thing.

That's the point. Not "but the people with high Dexterity get these features!!!", but instead "it preserves the theme of the character option while being more than just a +X bonus to the relevant ability score".

 

[Scribe]

I don't agree with that. I don't want racial mechanics that push you into different classes. I want to be able to play a Harengon Barbarian who still is quick and dexterous from their racial features, but also is a barbarian. I don't want to be pushed into the Rogue, Bard, or Ranger class by a +X bonus to my character's Dexterity score, because I would rather have more interesting and unique racial features that benefited me regardless of my class. Having both is . . . a bit redundant, IMO, and still pushes you into a certain class, which was one of the main complaints that people had about the Racial ASI system.

You dont want to feel, pushed, and thats fine, but you are not forced.

Regardless. Everyone understand's eachother on the issue at this point, and its a decided and finalized matter for Wizards, and now that its gone, there is "approaching 0" mathmatical chance that it will ever return.

I'll just homebrew it, or go to Pathfinder.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I'd wager that evasion is even better on high str low dex people, because it also halves damage on a failed saving throw. Usually you are good if you make your safe, or the fight was lost anyway. So you essentially get a free pass. And you still have a chance to totally negate the damage and possible effect.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You dont want to feel, pushed, and thats fine, but you are not forced.

It doesn't force you, but it feels like it does. For a game, where the intent is to have fun, that feeling can be just as impactful to your ability to have fun as a real mechanical effect would, like the previous version of the Bladesinger requiring you to be an Elf/Half-Elf to take the subclass. It doesn't matter if it didn't force you to do something, because if it feels like it does that, it still has an impact on your ability to have fun at the table.