D&D 5E Is Tasha's Broken?

[Irlo]

My problem is changing the fluff from having that bonus being attached to something that made sense to me to having it attached to nothing. You can attach it to something else. Culture works for me. Level Up does background, which is also fine. Completely untethered ASIs lose all meaning to me. If you're going to do that, just get rid of them altogether; the game doesn't need them to function anyway.

That's a good way to put it. I'm not sure I've seen the idea expressed that way. (But then I've been avoiding the floating ASI conversations.)

For me, being untethered is fine. The ASIs are just another step in character generation, no more or less attached to the character than to the dice rolls used to generate ability scores (or to the player's point-buy selections).

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's a good way to put it. I'm not sure I've seen the idea expressed that way. (But then I've been avoiding the floating ASI conversations.)

For me, being untethered is fine. The ASIs are just another step in character generation, no more or less attached to the character than to the dice rolls used to generate ability scores (or to the player's point-buy selections).

Generated ability scores (pre-ASI) represent natural talent and ability, plus perhaps pre-adventurer training/upbringing. However you choose them, that's what they are. Changing your stats ought to be attached to something, and ASIs post-Tasha's simply aren't. They've gone from something that could be seen as simulationist to something that can only be seen as gamist. I'd much rather that they ceased to exist than have that be the case.

 

[Irlo]

Generated ability scores (pre-ASI) represent natural talent and ability, plus perhaps pre-adventurer training/upbringing. However you choose them, that's what they are. Changing your stats ought to be attached to something, and ASIs post-Tasha's simply aren't. They've gone from something that could be seen as simulationist to something that can only be seen as gamist. I'd much rather that they ceased to exist than have that be the case.

Why not look at ASIs as related to natural talent and ability or pre-adventure training and upbringing?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Not 5% more often. 5% more likely to hit. That's a flat number.

Right. The 5% more likely to hit does NOT mean that you hit 5% more often (unless you already were hitting 95% of the time, in which case it’s close.)

And as has been shown just as often, that 20-30% is trivial. When your average damage is 6.5, 1-2 more points of damage just isn't meaningful.

Well, no. "I have claimed" (which you have) is not the same as "it has been shown."

I don't know how you are defining "trivial", but that 20-30% equates to a similar reduction in number of rounds required to kill a target, even if you're just doing 1-2 additional points of damage per attack. If you don't think that's important then you should definitely run with the 14 in your primary.

It's like when you hear, "Drinking this drink increases your chances of a heart attack by 400%!!!" and people freak out because they don't realize that even with the increase, it's still only a 1 in 10000 chance or something.

So....are you claiming that a change of 0.00025 to 0.0001 is a useful analogy for understanding a change of 6.5 to 8.125?

And, as is always the case in this debate, if the change is as small and trivial and irrelevant as you claim, then it also wouldn't provide a very meaningful differentiation between races, would it?

Maybe we should use interest on savings as our analogy?

 

[Bill Zebub]

My problem is changing the fluff from having that bonus being attached to something that made sense to me to having it attached to nothing. You can attach it to something else. Culture works for me. Level Up does background, which is also fine. Completely untethered ASIs lose all meaning to me. If you're going to do that, just get rid of them altogether; the game doesn't need them to function anyway.

Which is a good argument for simply getting rid of ASIs and changing the ability score generation method to produce a similar result.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I forgot to reply to this bit. The +1/+2 is the most bland and generic way possible to mechanically differentiate races and is something that literally isn't seen in actual play for NPCs because they simply don't make enough rolls before either the party moves on or the party kills them. It matters for PCs because the individual PC makes so many rolls.

Very much this. It seems blindingly obvious to me that attribute modifiers are the most bland way possible to differentiate races , and racial abilities are the most colorful way.* Otherwise elves, halfings, goblins, and aarakocra would all be identical, right? Half-elves, tieflings, and dragonbborn are the same race, with funny hats?

I get that some people simply like racial ASIs, in the same way that I still (incoming confession) yearn for the days when Paladins had to be Lawful Good. I know, I know...it's bad game design. But I liked it.

But this aesthetic preference for racial ASIs seems to lead to some very curious psychology.


*And racial abilities offer the additional benefit of having less (if not zero) synergy with specific classes compared to ASIs.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Most classes give pleasure wherever they go; Bards give the same pleasure whenever they go.

Bard give pleasure whenever they c~BANNED~

 

[Umbran]

It all goes back to Tasha's being

1. an obligation of new material for a book
2. a promise to not creat tons of splat
3. the designers not being inspired to create everything in the quota.
4. the designers either not knowing or purposely avoiding second tier popular class archetypes.

....But I would have never picked Twilight and Peace.

"They didn't do what I would prefer, therefore they are uninspired," is not a particularly compelling argument.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't know how you are defining "trivial", but that 20-30% equates to a similar reduction in number of rounds required to kill a target, even if you're just doing 1-2 additional points of damage per attack. If you don't think that's important then you should definitely run with the 14 in your primary.

No it doesn't equate to a similar reduction in rounds to kill a target. It's 1-2 points of damage. The PC isn't in a white room, so it's not just your PC engaging in the fight. The whole party is fighting and you only reduce the fight by that much if you are solo fighting. In a group fight you probably won't even reduce it by one round.

Most fights are 3-5 rounds. You're extra few points of damage isn't going to be noticeable.

 

[Bill Zebub]

"They didn't do what I would prefer, therefore they are uninspired," is not a particularly compelling argument.

That's why I prefer the general argument, "WotC broke their promises during Next because they are just greedy corporate automatons who hate martials and are afraid of the Twitter mob." Much more solid logic.