D&D General How do you like your ASIs?

[jmartkdr2]

IME it's extremely rare that they aren't.

I have had the opposite experience - they're almost always painfully bland, disruptive, and completely out-of-place in the setting.

 

[Minigiant]

Yup... I am surprised to see that DMs should get a red flag with vuman and ban them. I find roleplaying a inhuman mindset very challenging (fun sometimes, not always) and a "heroic human with a schtick" is something of a "default approach".

I'm not saying DMs should ban Vumans. However DMs should not be nonchalant when presented with a Vuman PC by a player because it's "just a human". When presented with a Vuman, one should immediately scout for powergaming just to know what you are dealing with.

 

[Helldritch]

You haven't actually presented a coherent thesis to defend.

The problem with your incorrect redefinition of powercreep is that you assume an optimizer is always going to try to pick the "best" build. We don't, although there are always some more aggressive optimizers who do so. Generally, we want to play a strong build, or make the most effective character we can within certain constraints. But we also value aesthetic and concepts when we build our characters; we're just not going to sacrifice effectiveness to do so. Choosing to build strong, efficient characters is more an aesthetic choice than a game choice. Ultimately, 5e is pretty easy, and the worst thing that happens is you die and make a new character. ¯\(ツ)/¯ It's just that a deliberately weak character is inelegant and thus less fun to play.

Thus, we prize rules that let us expand our palette of choices while still maintaining strong mechanical function.

1) power creep is not always by leaps and bounds. It is often comming by a small increment here, an other there and so on.

2) When was your palette ever was constrained with fixed ASI? Never was it constrained but what your own vision of the game told you. A halfling barbarian is quite fine even if that halfling is based on strength. We had one, and it was a terror. We have a dwarven (mountain) wizard of the divination school and she is not weak at all. Yet she did not started with that sweet sixteen yo so claim is necessary to play. She is no way restricted, still does not have a wand of the war mage and yet, she is contributing quite a lot to the group. In our second group we have an elf ranger using two long swords. Yep an elf based on strength and that ranger does not feel weak at all and he still does not have an 18 strength at level 8 because he chose medium armor master to raise his dexterity to 16. 16 on strength, dexterity and constitution. Not a bad character.

Fixed ASI forces you to think a bit harder, yes, but it is also rewarding when you effectively become a good character because you have to beat the odds. With floating ASI, your just another bloke...

 

[TwoSix]

2) When was your palette ever was constrained with fixed ASI? Never was it constrained but what your own vision of the game told you. A halfling barbarian is quite fine even if that halfling is based on strength. We had one, and it was a terror. We have a dwarven (mountain) wizard of the divination school and she is not weak at all. Yet she did not started with that sweet sixteen yo so claim is necessary to play. She is no way restricted, still does not have a wand of the war mage and yet, she is contributing quite a lot to the group. In our second group we have an elf ranger using two long swords. Yep an elf based on strength and that ranger does not feel weak at all and he still does not have an 18 strength at level 8 because he chose medium armor master to raise his dexterity to 16. 16 on strength, dexterity and constitution. Not a bad character.

Yes, but my vision of the game is what's important TO ME. To me, it is important to have the 16+ stat. Are you claiming the moral authority to tell me that my aesthetic preferences are incorrect?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Ultimately I feel that a game where everyone needs to have the same score in their main stat is more boring. It basically makes that ability score pointless, as it effectively is a fixed part of the class.

 

[Maxperson]

Very well, it all depends on your intentions. If you choose any race because it's a cool race and have a good concept, then it's cool, if you choose it just for the stat bonus, then yes, it's probably powergaming to some extent (although once more, there is no absolute there, there are whole dimensions of behaviour), even if you later disguise it under a more or less thin veneer of "background". DMs, in particular with some experience are not stupid, you know...

It's not really a dichotomy, though. You don't have to pick a race because it's cool or because it has a good stat bonus. It can be both and in equal amounts. I have at time picked a race because it was cool and I had a good concept and the bonus didn't align. Other times I picked a race because it was cool and I had a good concept, and the bonus did align. I've never picked any race for bonus only, or a race that I didn't think was cool.

 

[Maxperson]

Yup... I am surprised to see that DMs should get a red flag with vuman and ban them. I find roleplaying a inhuman mindset very challenging (fun sometimes, not always) and a "heroic human with a schtick" is something of a "default approach".

I've played humans about 80% of the time since 1e. I just like being human most of the time. Second comes elf. Third is half-elf/aasimar in about equal amounts. Then other odd races when the urge hits.

When 5e rolled around they took away feats at level 1 and I've LOVED feats since 3e introduced them. Variant Human is the only way to get a feat, so that's what I play when I make a human, even if I roll 6 odd stats and regular would bonus me across the board, a feat will trump. Not because I want one of the powerful feats, but because feats let me realize character concepts that I couldn't realize without getting the feat in question. I prefer the more RP oriented half-feats to the power feats, but sometimes a power feat is what matches the concept best, so I end up with it.

 

[Maxperson]

Then why have stats at all? Why don't you just say "we have thrown the rule book away and we are playing out a performance where it looks like we are playing D&D"? You can say "we are playing D&D RAW, but we focus on the role-play". But that is not D&D. It just isn't. If I was the DM, that char would be dead within a session. Of course, I would never be allowed to be near a group that tolerated such a char in the first place.

What is next, a 4 Con char? Would love, just love, to see a 4 Con Wizard actually played in a combat session. Or in your game, a 4 Con Fighter.

Maybe it's because I played 1e and had many wizards, fighters, thieves and clerics with 1 single hit point at level 1, but I don't have an issue with characters like that. If the person is enjoying playing the character with its limitations, go for it.

 

[Maxperson]

To me the terms have always been largely synonymous, though I see what you're getting at.

Optimization is also a sliding scale. If I'm playing a wizard and I choose a race with +1 int, that's optimization. It's not as optimized as a race with +2 int, though.

 

[Scribe]

Optimization is also a sliding scale. If I'm playing a wizard and I choose a race with +1 int, that's optimization. It's not as optimized as a race with +2 int, though.

And if you are Standard Array, you can get your 16 win just that +1.

Is that optimized?