D&D 5E Is Tasha's Broken?

[Vaalingrade]

But if ability scores do not differentiate characters, why are we having them? Why we have elaborate systems for buying and boosting numbers that do not mean anything?

So you can hit more and so people who like encumbrance can hurt us all on an emotional level.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The problem isn't ability scores.

The problem are:

1. We want ability score to be between 3-18 before mods
2. We want racial ability score modifiers to be small
3. We want total ability score modifiers of PCs to be small
4. We want ability score modifier formulas to be simple
5. We want ability scores to be thoughtful of class magic items like belts of storm giant

Remove any of them and the system gets a lot better.

Are we ready to give Halflings +8 Dexterity?

imagine a game where stats went for -1 to +5, where no race modified the number but there were some races that had prereq Stat +1. Now imagine items that added an additional +1/2/3 to that stat...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You know you guys are having a hell of a discussion when it's so impenetrable even I can't figure out how to stick my oar in. Please continue as you were!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So you can hit more and so people who like encumbrance can hurt us all on an emotional level.

But if everyone is basically expected to have the same score in the ability they hit things with, why not just bake that in the standard math and get rid of the meaningless ability?

 

[Vaalingrade]

But if everyone is basically expected to have the same score in the ability they hit things with, why not just bake that in the standard math and get rid of the meaningless ability?

Just because it doesn't do the one thing it was always bad at doing doesn't mean it's meaningless. It does other things.

Also, it's not the ability everyone uses to hit things.

Also, also, if we want to talk about ability scores that have no right to exist if they don't mean anything, why is Wisdom getting a pass?

Edit: Others would say INT, which serves little mechanical purpose, but what is Wisdom even supposed to be? Common sense? No adventurer has that.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Just because it doesn't do the one thing it was always bad at doing doesn't mean it's meaningless. It does other things.

Also, it's not the ability everyone uses to hit things.

Also, also, if we want to talk about ability scores that have no right to exist if they don't mean anything, why is Wisdom getting a pass?

It's not. If they don't measure anything then just git rid all of them.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's not. If they don't measure anything then just git rid all of them.

They measure your game stats.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

They measure your game stats.

That's circular.

 

[Dausuul]

But if ability scores do not differentiate characters, why are we having them? Why we have elaborate systems for buying and boosting numbers that do not mean anything?

Because they are a sacred cow and getting rid of them entirely would provoke too much backlash. If it were up to me, and I didn't have to worry about fan response, I'd scrap ability scores in a heartbeat. But, since that isn't on the table, I'll settle for limiting the headaches they cause.

I expect that "floating bonuses" will be removed and replaced with a tweak to the stat generation process in 5.5E or 6E, but that's not the sort of change you generally make in a splatbook like Tasha's. Floating bonuses was a decent short-term fix.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's circular.

Not really. They are stats the you derive others stats from.

In 5e, they're basically the lion's share of your skills until you're high level for example.