D&D 5E Theorycrafting: changing racial stat boosts to racial stat maxima

Quartz said:

It removes much of the front-loading of races. It removes the obvious racial choices. No more is half-elf the go-to choice for the Paladin or Bard, for instance.

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also @Horwath whose post above is the better solution if you want to do something about it with alternative rules for the stats:

Your intention is an interesting take, I guess your players are into minmaxing and optimizing, see one thing I do houserule at my table concerning stats is the old 3e rule for a spell of level x you need to have casting stat = 10+x, maybe that one helps you a bit. so wizard who wants to cast 5th level 15 int minimum that is.
(So no EK with Int 8, that guy cannot even "spell" his name in my games)
Also for armor, I enforce the STR rules, or in my current campaign there is also a full plate available needing a STR of 18 for a AC of 19.

The following is depending on what your players would accept, just make the optimum combos not available in your next campaign. Sorry now dwarf light domain cleric e.g. No half elf at all in this world, they all died/humans +elves genetically incompatible or what you have.

There are optimum combos in 5e RAW that is clear, but if you still need to go by mainly RAW concerning fluff because you have a younger PC group who just cannot accept that a dwarf never can be a wizard, then eventually introduce RP reasons to not take the optimum, like communicate to your player:
Sure you can play that half elf paladin, but know this: He is shunned in both elven and human society, the humans will consider him an atrocity of nature and the elven as an impurity to their race.
You still want to play that character? Good, but I warned you upfront.

This is what we are considering:



All characters get a +2 ASI and a +1 ASI. Humans, Half-elves, and Tieflings are all capped at 18 for everything. Unless a number is listed, 18 is the cap for other races as well.

I know a lot of people won't like the 16 cap, saying it makes certain classes less likely, but IMO a +3 vs a +4 isn't a big penalty.

dnd4vr said:

This is what we are considering:

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All characters get a +2 ASI and a +1 ASI. Humans, Half-elves, and Tieflings are all capped at 18 for everything. Unless a number is listed, 18 is the cap for other races as well.

I know a lot of people won't like the 16 cap, saying it makes certain classes less likely, but IMO a +3 vs a +4 isn't a big penalty.

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Uh but then I see loads of Halfling, Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers so imagine you play dragonlance so replace Halfling with kender. Every second session the paladin gets fallen status because he "borrows" to much from other PCs.


Elves would be the top notch thieves and dwarves barbarians (and maybe fighters too). For @Quartz 's dilemma you just played one round of journey to Jerusalem without reducing the number of chairs.

You created unusual "archetypes" but did not alter the need to take a certain race for a class to get maximum prime attribute. And, for Halfling it would be STR16 DEX20 WIS16 CHR 20 rather.

On the upside it is a viable method to alter things a bit. But lets go for minimum scores instead that might solve @Quartz problem for many races. E.g. min score for race:
Str 12 halforcs and dwarves and dragonborn
dex 12 halflings and elves
Con 12 halforcs and dwarves
Int 12 gnomes and elves
wis 12 dragonborn
cha 12 Tieflings and halfelves

well maybe that did not resolve the halfelf sorc bard pala problems it is just a rough example but you could introduce things like halfelves needing 12 in every stat except con because they inherited the best of both races, something like that.

Coroc said:

Uh but then I see loads of Halfling, Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers so imagine you play dragonlance so replace Halfling with kender. Every second session the paladin gets fallen status because he "borrows" to much from other PCs.


Elves would be the top notch thieves and dwarves barbarians (and maybe fighters too). For @Quartz 's dilemma you just played one round of journey to Jerusalem without reducing the number of chairs.

You created unusual "archetypes" but did not alter the need to take a certain race for a class to get maximum prime attribute. And, for Halfling it would be STR16 DEX20 WIS16 CHR 20 rather.

On the upside it is a viable method to alter things a bit. But lets go for minimum scores instead that might solve @Quartz problem for many races. E.g. min score for race:
Str 12 halforcs and dwarves and dragonborn
dex 12 halflings and elves
Con 12 halforcs and dwarves
Int 12 gnomes and elves
wis 12 dragonborn
cha 12 Tieflings and halfelves

well maybe that did not resolve the halfelf sorc bard pala problems it is just a rough example but you could introduce things like halfelves needing 12 in every stat except con because they inherited the best of both races, something like that.

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For me minimums aren't the issue. I have no problem with the clumsiest elf being as clumsiest human, but the most dexterous elf should be more dexterous than the most dexterous human.

Now, I choose the numbers I did also for balance sake. You could easily argue DEX 20 for Halflings instead of CHA 20, but again it goes to who should be best IMO (and when you consider all that encompasses DEX, elves should have better potential than Halflings).

@dnd4vr
I would not give elves +2 dex over other races in all aspects of the game. That gives bonus from start to finish. For gaming purpose it's better to have equall ceiling for all races.

Elves can have aptitudes towards certain things, but thing that should be achievable to other races given time and spent resources.

I.E. Elves can get proficiency and expertise in Perception
Or proficiency with bows and archery fighting style
Or proficiency and expertise in stealth and survival(wood elves) or proficiency and expertise in arcana, religion and history(high elves).

some minor traits could be race exclusive like Elven trance that gives 4hrs long rest instead of 8 or dwarven poison resistance. But +2 ability is too all inclusive to give +1 bonus that will be focus of you character and used non-stop.

Quartz said:

It removes much of the front-loading of races. It removes the obvious racial choices. No more is half-elf the go-to choice for the Paladin or Bard, for instance.

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how does it do that? wouldn't that have the exact opposite effect of shoehorning you into the 1-2 races that allow you to get your maximum in the preferred stat?

the way I see it, most classes have 1 main stat and then dex/con as secondaries. So you would pick the race that allows you to get 20 in your main stat and then settle for 18 dex/con for most everything

MAD classes usually also don't get much higher than 18 in their secondaries

from my perspective, this doesn't really accomplish anything, unless you are starting your games with really high starting stats

Horwath said:

@dnd4vr
I would not give elves +2 dex over other races in all aspects of the game. That gives bonus from start to finish. For gaming purpose it's better to have equall ceiling for all races.

Elves can have aptitudes towards certain things, but thing that should be achievable to other races given time and spent resources.

I.E. Elves can get proficiency and expertise in Perception
Or proficiency with bows and archery fighting style
Or proficiency and expertise in stealth and survival(wood elves) or proficiency and expertise in arcana, religion and history(high elves).

some minor traits could be race exclusive like Elven trance that gives 4hrs long rest instead of 8 or dwarven poison resistance. But +2 ability is too all inclusive to give +1 bonus that will be focus of you character and used non-stop.

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Just to clarify (even though I do think you understand) I am not giving Elves +2 DEX, I am giving them the potential to be better than all other races at DEX things. Since every character gets the same +2 ASI and +1 ASI, a gnome could put their bonus in DEX just as easily as an elf could.

That isn't to say, of course, with proficiency other races won't be better at certain things. For example, a human with acrobatics proficiency will likely be better than an elf without it.

If you give your human character +2 ASI to DEX, and the other player gives their elf's +2 ASI to WIS (for example), the human is likely more dexterous than the elf. But, the elf still has better potential.

Also, your last idea that this would focus Elves (for example) primarily on classes that require DEX is pretty short-sighted IMO. For example, I often play an half-elf and get the CHA +2 as per RAW and use it to boost my CHA 8 or 9 to 10 or 11, respectively, since the class doesn't need CHA (and I don't want to put points into it).

Of course, everyone has their own style/opinion.

Quartz said:

I was mulling things over last night and wondered how it would affect D&D if, in a feat-less game, racial stat bumps were changed to improved stat maxima.

That is, the normal stat maximum is reduced to 18. Then each race gets two stats which have an increased maximum of 20. Humans choose which two, others are defined by race.

Has anyone tried something like this?

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Another option is if you give a universal +2 ASI (place wherever you want) then whatever you apply that to has a cap of 20, all other scores cap at 18.

Now, as some others have pointed out, unless you are rolling stats, you are unlikely to see more than one maxed out score unless you play the character for a while or you are playing a featless game. So what does it really matter that your maximums are?

dnd4vr said:

or you are playing a featless game.

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Which is the type noted in my OP.

Quartz said:

Which is the type noted in my OP.

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Oh, I know, that comment was meant for people in general. Sorry that wasn't clear.