D&D General How do you like your ASIs?

[jmartkdr2]

First off, thanks for the information.

With regard to the differences in halflings and goliaths, wouldn't those differences in what they can ride, amounts of food, etc. also have an impact on their traditions, holidays, etc.? Halflings might develop some sort of dog bonding ceremony for the coming of age.

Oh, absolutely. But there's no 'right' answer as to what those would be. Just that they would be different between cultures within the species.

 

[BookTenTiger]

In practice, I believe it does break down that way; everyone becomes more similar. But the advertised appeal of floating is that you can build your character exactly the way you want, without being tied to your race. And THAT idea absolutely caters to the idea of "I'm special and unique" that is so prevalent today.

That's one (rather judgmental) interpretation.

How about the idea of "I'm having fun playing x kind of character, and the rules now support that?"

It's strange to me how many critiques of an optional rule have to do with denigrating an imagined group of players.

 

[Bill Zebub]

In practice, I believe it does break down that way; everyone becomes more similar. But the advertised appeal of floating is that you can build your character exactly the way you want, without being tied to your race. And THAT idea absolutely caters to the idea of "I'm special and unique" that is so prevalent today.

That's like saying that fixed ASIs "cater to" the idea of racial superiority, genetic destiny, and master races. Which they absolutely, incontrovertibly do, for those (few, I hope) who have that goal. But it doesn't mean that everybody who likes fixed ASIs likes them for that reason.

But if we want to go down the rabbit hole of over-generalizing the opposing viewpoint for the purpose of denigration and vilification, the floating ASI gang has the stronger argument here.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Oh boy, the well trotted shite about people wanting to be "special and unique".

It's almost as if we're, as I think, you know, the fact that everyone discussing this has come with different points or lead to different arguments, or had different thoughts, kinda proves that, maybe, we all are a bit different and unique to each other, especially in what we experience?

Maybe we are all god damn naughty word special and maybe there's not a damn problem about that.

And there certainly isn't a problem doing that in a GAME about having FUN WITH OTHERS.

 

[Minigiant]

In practice, I believe it does break down that way; everyone becomes more similar. But the advertised appeal of floating is that you can build your character exactly the way you want, without being tied to your race. And THAT idea absolutely caters to the idea of "I'm special and unique" that is so prevalent today.

My personal guess it's less that it's less that people want to be special and unique and more boredom.

Fantasy isn't niche anymore and hasn't been for decades now. Even among D&D newbs, dwarf warriors and elf wizards have been done to death in vigeo games, board games, war games, books, TCG, movies, anime, manga, manwha, minis, cartoons.

So a game designed to replicate old stereotypes will burn through the hype of those concepts fast.

It's kinda how modders will start working on game mods for a video game sequel right after open beta. People are getting bored with "straight up play" fast.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh boy, the well trotted shite about people wanting to be "special and unique".

It's almost as if we're, as I think, you know, the fact that everyone discussing this has come with different points or lead to different arguments, or had different thoughts, kinda proves that, maybe, we all are a bit different and unique to each other, especially in what we experience?

Maybe we are all god damn naughty word special and maybe there's not a damn problem about that.

And there certainly isn't a problem doing that in a GAME about having FUN WITH OTHERS.

I'm not placing a value on individualism, I'm noting a societal trend and how it might be impacting the game. The vitriol is not warranted.

 

[ReshiIRE]

I'm not placing a value on individualism, I'm noting a societal trend and how it might be impacting the game. The vitriol is not warranted.

The amount of time I've seen "special and unique" used as an euphanism to criticise or demean LGBTQIA+ people or neurodivergent people (or indeed, people who are ""different"" from the supposed ""norm"") is pretty high. So I am a little sensitive to it, and while I could have phrased it better (I've reported my own post), the sentiment often hurts.

The "societal trend" are people recognising that maybe, you know, things are complicated, and people are individuals, and that differents that don't hurt people don't really matter, no matter what "society" thinks?

If you're not using it in that matter - what does it mean to you? How does it manifest? And why is it bad (as the sense that you find it bad is what I'm getting from what you're saying)?

(perhaps this is also a big cultural difference - nobody is saying anything like that over here, and the context I've seen it used online makes me think it's some sort of euphanism.)

P.S. I've been told I am 'special' all my life, and in terms of ability or other things, I'm definitely not. Not in any manner.

But we are all 'special' due to our wildly different experiences and upbringings, our thoughts and combinations, and the way we've had to work through life.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For whatever reason I've always looked at averages rather than expected arrays. Here your average of the six stats is 12.83.

Rolling 5d6-drop-2 once for each stat gives an average of, I think, about 13.1; which in effect is +1 to two of your six listed stats.

Bit late to the party on this one, but I thought it might still be worthwhile to weigh in. Averages can be misleading, however, since it is quite rare for every single roll to be near the average. That's why you often want to simulate a full spread of results, if possible, rather than strictly dealing with the numerical averages.

We can use AnyDice to perform this calculation easily. Literally just took the ordinary 4d6-drop-lowest program presented here, modified to keep the top 3 out of 5 rather than the top 3 out of 4. As you can see from the graph version (rather than the table version, which isn't very easy to make comparisons with), the expected results are {16.44, 15.21, 14.14, 13.06, 11.80, 9.93}. If we round these to the closest integer, we get {16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 10}. This is a little bit more than +1 to every stat, as the default 5e array is {15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8}: a componentwise subtraction gives {1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2} for a total of 8 additional points, though the biggest differences are at the lowest end of the curve (and partially caused by rounding.) The 5e point-buy exactly reproduces the default array.

Allowing a seventh roll also has a side effect of reducing the chance greatly of a character starting with a very low score, as it becomes a "dump roll". Whether this is a feature, a bug, or neither is in the eye of the beholder.

This is fair. (Incidentally, adding a 7th roll to the above example gives {16.60, 15.48, 14.53, 13.62, 12.64, 11.45, 9.68}. Meaning that, on average, the low roll you discard is quite likely to be no less than 7, implying that all your other rolls are usually 8+. The statistically average array becomes {17, 15, 15, 14, 13, 11, 10} with the 10 being discarded. Adding a 7th roll to the ordinary 4d6-drop-lowest option instead gives an expected average array of {16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 8}, with that 14 being literally a hair's breadth from rounding up to 15 instead.)

 

[Lanefan]

The game-related need for balance has eliminated the possibility of having litterally better choices as races are balanced (or at least, they strive to be).

True. The problem is that where there were once maybe 7 or 8 PC-playable species that needed to be vaguely kept in balance there's now several dozen, many of which wouldn't be balanced at all were they left in their original "monster" forms. (and some can't really be balanced no matter what you do - I'm looking at you, Aarakokra, with your always-on flight ability)

Racial tension between playable races has generally been dropped from the settings. If you look at many countries in FR or Eberron, they are all extremely diverse and there is few (if any) example of resentment from a part of the majority group against a minority group. I'd say that people in fantasy setting have a level of enlightenment that makes our societies in real-life to shame.

Preference, perhaps, but to me the Tolkenian idea of species living apart from each other and where contact between them is relatively uncommon has always been the default. (side thought: the idea of a points-of-light setting didn't start with 4e; Middle Earth, designed well over half a century earlier, is a great example of a p-o-l world)

 

[Lanefan]

First, there is not going to be another character of the same archetype in the party,

Is this something you enforce, that players can't have similar PCs in the same party? Genuinely curious, as if true it seems an overly-arbitrary restriction in my view.

Finally, rolling is still the standard way of generating stats, and if you do it honestly, there is going to be WAAAAAYYYYY more differences that that one +1 in one stat.

Agreed.

That still doesn't lessen the potential relevance of that +1, though, particularly (in 3e-4e-5e) if that +1 makes an odd-numbered stat become even.