D&D 5E PC Limitations vs. Do Whatever You Want

[Blue]

So, it seems that WoTC design philosophy is very much going in the direction of letting players do whatever they want in creation of their characters.

When my eldest was young she saw me creating a D&D character and wanted to make one as well. This was back in D&D 3.5 days. So I asked her what she wanted her character to do. She replied with a multitude of things pulled from stories and fairytales.

None of them fit a class. Classes inherently aren't "let players do what they want", they are focusing players into specific niches. More than that, in D&D they are making sure it's a team game that you need others to be able to do the full gamut of abilities.

So we went through this list, and two of the most important ones were "change into a cat" and "heal people". Ah HA, a druid. So we tossed all the rest of what she wanted and focused on druid. Then we got to ability scores. I explained what each was, and she said that she wanted a low wisdom because her character has little common sense and was super impulsive, and a high dexterity "like Peter Parker". That always stuck with me - not like Spider-man, like Peter. But we can't build this character and have it be all that viable. Wisdom is the prime ability score for druids, so much was based on it. And the Dex we could do, but would just get ignored while shape changed.

What I learned from this is that there are a very large number of fetters and limitations inherent in the foundation of the system that I didn't see anymore because I had been playing for years and had internalized it.

There's some nod to letting players do what they want in terms of the details in this 2024 playtest document. But the major constraints are still in place. It's like if there was only one brand of car with one sporty coup, one minivan, and an SUV. Sure you can pick what color you want it, and if you get the enhanced sound system, but really those are minor choices and you are locked into the coup, the minivan or the SUV - they control the big choices and how they fit together.

 

[Smackpixi]

Yeah, I think they’re trying to make your daughter happy as their design goal While also keeping rules and mechanics as a thing in the game. You can’t actually Provide a technical system for a million different ideas, the DM is going to have to adapt the wide ranging possibilities offered to the needs of a specific player. help for doing that would be a pretty incredible thing to include in the new DMG.

 

[MGibster]

If you want the option to do whatever you want, D&D probably isn't the game for you. That's not a dig against D&D as I don't expect any game to be all things to all people. Not even GURPS. If you're going to play D&D, you've got to accept some limitations such as class. Backgrounds certainly allow for more flexibility, but your class will largely determine what your attributes are and what exactly you're good at.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Honestly i kind of see this from the other direction, yes, let people build whatever they want but the floating ASI doesn’t actually allow you to build anything you couldn’t previously, it just lets you have better numbers while typically going against the narrative of the world.

I’d be more inclined to let a nature themed orcish feylock replace their warlock spell list with the druid list than let them swap their +2 str to cha for optimisation because at least the first is a central part of the character concept and makes sense why a nature entity might give druid-ish spells rather than the typical warlock’s capacities

I’d rather have a limited number of meaningful options that make sense and are justifiable than the options to do everything simply to let you do everything.

So instead of getting cool Warlock Orcs we get boring Warlock Half-Elves because we always get Warlock Half-Elves, why would you ever play anything else, you get access to both Prodigy and Elven Accuracy AND +2 Cha AND a bunch of other benefits.

This is why I find this "optimization" argument so specious. You are not going to make the optimizers play non-optimal races. That already happens. Floating ASIs mean you're going to get more unusual, and in fact LESS optimal, combinations. People are still almost always going to choose human, elf, or (5.0) half-elf regardless because they are stupidly powerful for anything you might want to play. Now, however, you might actually see orcish Warlocks or dragonborn Wizards as more than just incredibly rare one-offs, combinations that do nothing particularly special for the class, because the player isn't going to feel punished for choosing something that isn't human, half-elf, or elf.

 

[CreamCloud0]

So instead of getting cool Warlock Orcs we get boring Warlock Half-Elves because we always get Warlock Half-Elves, why would you ever play anything else, you get access to both Prodigy and Elven Accuracy AND +2 Cha AND a bunch of other benefits.

This is why I find this "optimization" argument so specious. You are not going to make the optimizers play non-optimal races. That already happens. Floating ASIs mean you're going to get more unusual, and in fact LESS optimal, combinations. People are still almost always going to choose human, elf, or (5.0) half-elf regardless because they are stupidly powerful for anything you might want to play. Now, however, you might actually see orcish Warlocks or dragonborn Wizards as more than just incredibly rare one-offs, combinations that do nothing particularly special for the class, because the player isn't going to feel punished for choosing something that isn't human, half-elf, or elf.

If people don’t want to play the orcish +str,+con warlock that’s on them but floating asi doesn’t change the optimiser asking the question of ‘what’s the most powerful race for this build? It just bumps the main point of inquiry from what’s their ASI to what’s their race features.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If people don’t want to play the orcish +str,+con warlock that’s on them but floating asi doesn’t change the optimiser asking the question of ‘what’s the most powerful race for this build? It just bumps the main point of inquiry from what’s their ASI to what’s their race features.

Yes. That's my point. The 5.0 Half-elf is already one of the most powerful races in the game. With access to one of the most powerful feats in the game, Elven Accuracy, which is specifically good for Warlock characters. Floating ASIs doesn't change that.

Orcs will never be particularly beneficial to someone wanting to play a Warlock, even with floating ASIs. None of its features are particularly strong except for a character that wants to engage in melee and take lots of damage. Warlocks do not want to do that. Even a Hexblade Bladelock is at significant risk in melee combat, wanting to pick and choose their battles rather than (very literally) rushing in headlong. The 5.1e Orc is simply not good for Warlocks, and the 5.0 Half-Orc is hardly better (the crit benefit might be limitedly useful, but that's marginal at best.)

Your argument hinges on the idea that these unusual combinations will drown out the more "traditional" choices. They won't. Human, elf, and (5.0) half-elf will remain by far the most common choices, guaranteed. With 5.1e apparently reducing Human down to just one option, rather than Standard and Variant Human, it's essentially guaranteed that that one Human option will be the unequivocal plurality option, easily eclipsing any single other option (and likely even the next two largest options!)

So. You're not actually going to change the behavior of the optimizer. That's literally never going to change. They were already going to choose something that's way better anyway. The only people whose behavior this CAN affect....are the ones who would choose things for their flavor, if they didn't feel punished for choosing something proverbially "off-label." Floating ASIs let those people choose whatever actually excites them, for its thematic or narrative potential, rather than because they feel they must do right by the team and play something strong.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Yes. That's my point. The 5.0 Half-elf is already one of the most powerful races in the game. With access to one of the most powerful feats in the game, Elven Accuracy, which is specifically good for Warlock characters. Floating ASIs doesn't change that.

Orcs will never be particularly beneficial to someone wanting to play a Warlock, even with floating ASIs. None of its features are particularly strong except for a character that wants to engage in melee and take lots of damage. Warlocks do not want to do that. Even a Hexblade Bladelock is at significant risk in melee combat, wanting to pick and choose their battles rather than (very literally) rushing in headlong. The 5.1e Orc is simply not good for Warlocks, and the 5.0 Half-Orc is hardly better (the crit benefit might be limitedly useful, but that's marginal at best.)

Your argument hinges on the idea that these unusual combinations will drown out the more "traditional" choices. They won't. Human, elf, and (5.0) half-elf will remain by far the most common choices, guaranteed. With 5.1e apparently reducing Human down to just one option, rather than Standard and Variant Human, it's essentially guaranteed that that one Human option will be the unequivocal plurality option, easily eclipsing any single other option (and likely even the next two largest options!)

So. You're not actually going to change the behavior of the optimizer. That's literally never going to change. They were already going to choose something that's way better anyway. The only people whose behavior this CAN affect....are the ones who would choose things for their flavor, if they didn't feel punished for choosing something proverbially "off-label." Floating ASIs let those people choose whatever actually excites them, for its thematic or narrative potential, rather than because they feel they must do right by the team and play something strong.

My argument wasn’t that the unusual combinations would drown out the typical ones, just that if optimisers are going to optimise anyway I’d rather have the asi reflect the narrative of the species than being all over the place, that dwarves are hardy and have better con, and that elves are quick and have good dex

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My argument wasn’t that the unusual combinations would drown out the typical ones, just that if optimisers are going to optimise anyway I’d rather have the asi reflect the narrative of the species than being all over the place, that dwarves are hardy and have better con, and that elves are quick and have good dex

Okay...but your reason for opposing it was specifically because you didn't want people playing Orc Warlocks in order to optimize.

The problem is, people won't play Orcs to optimize in the first place.

Ever noticed in the 5e race statistics that dwarves are really rare? Yeah, that's not because they don't have good stats. They do. Mountain dwarves get two different +2s. That's the best you can get. And yet, despite being more powerful than many other options, they're substantially less popular than dragonborn...who are sufficiently weak that WotC replaced them in Fizban's.

Optimizers will optimize by finding ways to make human, half-elf, elf, or (more rarely) tiefling work with whatever thing you're already intending to do. And it just turns out that those options are both incredibly popular and meaningfully more powerful than pretty much anything else in the game...and two of them (human and half-elf) already have flexible racial ability scores anyway. (Half-elves can choose where their two +1s go, standard humans get +1 to all stats regardless, and variant humans get their choice of two distinct +1 bonuses.)

You specifically said, above, "it just lets you have better numbers while typically going against the narrative of the world." No, it doesn't. You could always get those numbers regardless of the narrative of the world. Because half-elf is THAT good. Instead, floating racial ability bonuses lets you have competent numbers for whatever you find interesting.

Besides: subverting expectations can be an incredibly useful thing. And, as I said, there's no significant reason to want to play an orc warlock or a dragonborn wizard or a halfling barbarian even with floating bonuses. The only people who will do that are the ones who think a cool story will come from it. Everyone else will stick with either the "default" options (human, half-elf, elf, aka the "pretty but mostly normal" races) or the "powerful" options (...which are mostly variant human, half-elf, and elf.)

 

[ECMO3]

I like wide PC concepts. I like the published rules (incl Tashas) because they are pretty wide.

As far as the ONE D&D UA, I am ok with most of the character creation stuff, although I think all my builds will be a custom background to get the stats I want - "Oh I am not taking the "sailor" background, my Character is a "bosun" he served on a sailing vessel and has a +2 intelligence and +1 to Charisma since he knew the rigging of the ship and ran the deck crew....oh and he has the magic initiate feat"

The only thing I really don't like as far as character creation is the new Dragonborn, which they nerfed back to PHB level.

The character creation thing is the only part I like though, the new grapple rules are a disaster and eliminating most crits takes a lot of fun out of the game.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Okay...but your reason for opposing it was specifically because you didn't want people playing Orc Warlocks in order to optimize.

The problem is, people won't play Orcs to optimize in the first place.

No my point was not orc warlocks specifically, it was mindlessly moving the bonuses from any vaguely ‘misaligned’ class-race combo into the class’s ‘standard optimal build’ rather than actually seeing unusual combinations as themselves, looking at their own strengths and talents rather than as something to be made to fit the mould