D&D General How do you like your ASIs?

[Vince_Snetterton]

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.

The amount of people on the planet that are indeed "special" is a tiny tiny fraction. For every Stephen Hawking, or Annie Lennox, or Lebron James, there are 1 million others that are average, not special at all. That is one of the fundamental issues driving this debate, and so many other real world issues today. The majority of the West (I can't comment on other places) truly believe that "I am indeed special, and the world should cater to me". That is what so much of this ASI conversation, or the entire Pokemon universe of species available, or the power leap that came with Tasha's, is all about.

I am playing in a game right now where I was the outlier taking Stout Halfing. The rest are Human. It is great, because we actually have to carry torches, and deal with Object Interaction etc.

I would love, just love, to run a game completely made up of Humans, with 27 point buy, no Human Variant, with a heavily reduced list of Feats. Then, what comes out of this is the chars that shine are run by the better players. But if I walked into my gaming cafe saying I want to build a campaign about such parameters I would not enough for a table, as players want to play Pokemon universe for species, roll for stats, use floating ASI's etc.

 

[Lanefan]

I ran all three over the course of a few years, and Griffon Mountain played better, for us.

Side note: it's interesting how often this seems to happen - a specific adventure or module that plays great at one table turns out to be poor at another. I suspect this largely comes down to two factors: the zeitgeist of the players at the time and the degree to which the DM enjoys and-or likes the module; but it does tell me,t when looking for opinions on a module, to get more than one and take an average!

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

I was actually thinking of historical theory. For a long time now, the idea that an individual can make great historical events move forward (the so-called "Great Man theory") has been unpopular, in favor of the force of history moving things along in an ultimately inevitable direction. I recently listened to a history podcast that suggested that, due to the strong emphasis our culture currently places on individualism and the ability of a single person, the Great Man Theory make actually make a comeback. I thought that was interesting, and attempted to extrapolate that idea to the current gaming environment. I certainly didn't intend to offend anyone. I'm an academic at heart, and try to approach this issues from an intellectual perspective, even when those around me try to make it an emotional one.
There is ample historical evidence that the more people are in a position to.make themselves heard, the more opinions tend to factionalize and emotions run hot. This happened when the printing press was invented and writing proliferated as never before, and it seems to me to be happening now with the ease folks have to put their opinions in public view on a heretofore unimaginable scale. I think that's very interesting, and worth discussing, and can be applied to how we play the game we love.

 

[Lanefan]

But...
Str is near useless for pure casters
Int is near useless for pure warriors
Dex is an ultimate score
Con, Wis, and Cha are good for everyone.

It's not powergaming but fixing the system.

This hits two completely different issues at once; one relevant, one not so much IMO.

First, that some stats are useless for some classes isn't a problem: it naturally follows that someone with a bent for, say, fighting is going to want to be (or become) stronger and-or tougher than the average Sue and brains (while useful) and-or looks aren't likely to matter as much in the pursuit of becoming a better fighter. Flip that around with an arcane caster - if he's strong enough to carry his spellbooks around and is robust enough to not fall ill every other week, what more does he need physically? Here, all the development and training is most likely going to go into brain power.

Second, that Dex is an "ultimate score" really is a problem; and one the designers seem hesitant to fix though there's some obvious low-hanging fruit to get the process started: move all melee attack and damage bonuses to Str (i.e. no more weapon finesse, ever, for anyone); move some Dex-based saves and-or checks over to Wis or Int as appropriate (i.e. you're smart/wise enough to see what's coming ahead of time and react); and completely do away with initiative bonuses.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

move all melee attack and damage bonuses to Str (i.e. no more weapon finesse, ever, for anyone)

That I feel is way too harsh. However, letting finesse weapons use dex for hit but still strength for damage might be decent a middle point (doesn't Pathfined do this?)

 

[Lanefan]

As soon as halflings are the same size as humans....

Would that make them fullings?

 

[FrozenNorth]

In classical philosophy, this is known formally as the "Kids On My Lawn" argument.

To be fair, this argument itself has a very long history.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

You mean, apart from it being a fine character that Scott had fun to play with. But again, for you, "payoff" means a +1 to a stat, please explain how this is not powergaming ?



And they are not needed, they are just an option that millions have been playing fine without.



Except it does not need fixing for the millions of people playing it, so please don't call it "fixing", there is no justification for it. However, claiming that "fixing" it is allowing an absolutely unneeded +1 to a stat is powergaming.

If wanting a +1 to your most important stat is powergaming then are all half orc fighters pwergamed characters?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

I run a Dungeon World game rather than 5e, but this actually is a recommendation from the authors. DW classes ("playbooks") are very focused and depend heavily on their core features. It'll feel really, REALLY obvious that you have two identical classes if people are playing the same thing. That doesn't mean you can't have two similar things, just means you want to find either supplementary or 3rd party playbooks for players to use. E.g. if I had two people wanting to play Wizards, I might see if one would go for Illusionist and the other for Arcane Duelist or Conjurer or the like.

For my game, it ended up just being, "hey guys, can you play distinct classes? Thanks." Our Bard had a while where they wished they'd gotten to play a Ranger (someone beat them to the punch) but now they can't imagine playing anything else, so folks are generally happy. (I also have leaned into letting said bard branch out into new fields, which helps alleviate the concerns.)

 

[FrozenNorth]

That I feel is way too harsh. However, letting finesse weapons use dex for hit but still strength for damage might be decent a middle point (doesn't Pathfined do this?)

This is a place where reasonable people may disagree. My preferred solution is to limit the impact of Dex on defense and offense. Finesse weapons have a lower damage die than strength weapons (I would not allow any 1d8 finesse weapons), and max AC on a Dex character would be lower than now. Str therefore is better on offense and defense, and Dex is more versatile.