D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)

[Lyxen]

That one doesn't seem to include the options from Tasha's. Am I looking in the wrong place? What I'm looking for is whether post-Tasha's there are races that are rated higher than the best option pre-Tasha's.

Not all the guides have been updated, but have a look at this one for example. Quite a few of the races are very much improved by Tasha, and the best options are now all from customised origin (Tortle, for example), whereas the previously strong human variant is no longer interesting, which is extremely significative.

Really, though, what I'm hoping to see someday is data from D&DBeyond comparing pre- and post-Tasha's preferences.

That would assume that they stop being lazy...

In any event, it has become apparent that each of us is product of our experiences, which affects our viewpoint. I've seen the sort of toxic powergamer some people described, but only when I was for a while going to a big weekly Adventurer's League meeting at FLGS. But I don't go to that anymore, so it's not really a problem I have to deal with. My stance on all issues of player toxicity is that changing the rules doesn't change behavior and the only real solution is to not play with those people. But I can understand that if somebody has a really bad experience with a certain type of player it can produce a deeply-rooted emotional reaction to the conditions. (My wife got terrible food poisoning from seafood as a child, and still can't stand the smell of seafood.)

There is that, but there's also the simple thing of making sure that a long term campaign will go smoothly.

In my own group there's one player who always plays a powergamer build that I suspect he's researched, and the difference is clear during combat. However, he never tells other people how they should play, and when the DM overrules one of his shenanigans he immediately and graciously accepts it, with a slight smile that seems to acknowledge that he is pushing the boundaries.

Then it's not too bad a case, but do you think it's normal that there is a clear difference during combat ? I don't, and combat is not even a strong component of our games, but eveyone around the table has got the right to shine equally in all parts of the game.

And he still needs watching, and rulings even though, at least, he is not a rules lawyer.

But this discussion has helped me better understand a range of viewpoints, and for those who were willing to repeat and clarify and discuss without getting angry and accusatory, this has been educational. Thanks.

No worries, and thanks to you for having reasonably thick skin, it helps as well...

 

[Zubatcarteira]

And that is because a whole gaggle of racial powers is usually better than a single feat. Hence the power creep, because you get stats which are as good as a previous variant human exactly where you want them, and you can simply pick the racial abilities (and some are very strong) that complement your class.

Power creep => attractive to powergamers.

Not really, Custom Lineage gives a +2 to a stat, a feat, and darkvision or a skill, it trades racial powers for the feat, basically. Feats are usually better if you want to optimize.

It's why I find this whole powergaming issue silly, if you want to optimize without Tasha's you just grab Variant Human, and it'll pretty much be the best race anyway. What Tasha's does is letting you play a different race, but still work okay for any class, or go Custom Lineage which is basically a better Variant Human that lets you get darkvision and look like an orc if you want to.

 

[Lyxen]

Just out of curiosity, what's your evidence that "powergamers do not understand" this? With millions of D&D players, that seems to be a pretty broad statement.

It's by definition. What's the point of wanting to be more powerful when the DM will in any case adjust the difficulty of the encounter ?

I can understand this in a game where the difficulty is fixed, like a computer game, but in a TTRPG, it is just bizarre.

Every group I have ever played with has understood...and expected, and desired...that the DM would adjust difficulty to the ability of the party.
P.S. I think you mentioned up-thread that you were a powergamer early in your career. Did YOU understand this?

At the time, I did not, indeed, and there was that part of competition with other players for the spotlight. But then I realised that for every minute that one of us powergamers was hogging the spotlight with our shenanigans, another of my friends at the table was unhappy and not getting much attention. So I started doing exactly the reverse, finding ways for OTHER players to have the spotlight, mostly by roleplaying or propping them up (this was fairly easy to understand, but it took me a while, thankfully my attitude as a DM and organiser of LARPs where it's focussing on the fun of others helped me realise that I was being a jerk as a player). And because most of us do this now, our games are much, much better.

Recently, we had the "olympic games" in our Odyssey of the Dragonlords, but instead of each of us trying to win individually as many medals as we could (which we easily could have, and the DM, who is running this campaign with three groups in parallel, explained to us the difference with the other groups), we decided to prop up one of us (who is one of our more timid players), so we spent all of our ressources on helping him, making sure that we did not win when he could, etc.

In the end, it was a victory for the whole group because of this, a large collective victory rather than a series of small fights between us.

 

[Lyxen]

... go Custom Lineage which is basically a better Variant Human ...

I don't need to see more than this, it's a direct admission that Tasha gets you better deals => power creep.

 

[Bill Zebub]

No worries, and thanks to you for having reasonably thick skin, it helps as well...

Everything I've ever needed to know in life I learned from watching Ted Lasso.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I don't need to see more than this, it's a direct admission that Tasha gets you better deals => power creep.

Absolutely, but that's unrelated to the changing ability scores part. I think CL could be nerfed a little, but making a normal Half-Orc with +2 Int so he can be a wizard isn't really an issue at all, a Variant Human would just be better most of the time, and that goes for most unusual combinations.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's by definition. What's the point of wanting to be more powerful when the DM will in any case adjust the difficulty of the encounter ?

I can understand this in a game where the difficulty is fixed, like a computer game, but in a TTRPG, it is just bizarre.

Then I think it's possible that you genuinely are not understanding part of the optimizer mindset, especially because you use the computer game example. Although I don't play a lot of video games, when I do I get really into the optimization. But then the game gets too easy, so I start looking for ways to make it harder while optimizing. Although I'm nowhere even remotely in this league, the highest achievement in computer RPGs (or so I gather from the Internet) is to be able to beat a game solo, in hard ("Hell") mode. If it was just about making things easy, optimizers would only play in the easiest setting, right?

Again, I'm sure there are people out there who want to be better than everybody else at the table, and "beat" the DM, etc. I wouldn't play with them. But for some (many?) of us, the "arms race" between better and better characters and harder and harder difficulty is exactly why optimization is fun. For the players and the DM.

That doesn't mean everybody has to enjoy this mode, of course, but I do think your characterization of the mindset is way off base. Or, at least, only applies to a tiny minority.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Absolutely, but that's unrelated to the changing ability scores part. I think CL could be nerfed a little, but making a normal Half-Orc with +2 Int so he can be a wizard isn't really an issue at all, a Variant Human would just be better most of the time, and that goes for most unusual combinations.

Yeah the thing I've alluded to in this thread, but really the elephant in the room is that I (as an optimizer) almost never play non-humans anyway. vHuman is just too compelling, largely because all you need is a 16; the 17 is superfluous. So anything that makes vHuman relatively less attractive is probably a good thing.

I did try a wood elf monk once. I just couldn't get past the part about "wood elf" + "monk" and lost interest.

 

[Lyxen]

Absolutely, but that's unrelated to the changing ability scores part. I think CL could be nerfed a little, but making a normal Half-Orc with +2 Int so he can be a wizard isn't really an issue at all, a Variant Human would just be better most of the time, and that goes for most unusual combinations.

And again, my point is that the unusual combinations will not be used by powergamers, who will all go the the same "better deal". This is basically what the guides recommend if your DM is generous enough to give you floating ASIs, and I'm still waiting for examples of characters build along an unusual combination that has actually seen play.

Again, impossible to have statistics, but with the number of people here arguing for floating ASIs, I was expecting to see at least some proof...

 

[le Redoutable]

Agreed. Most of the powergamers I've known over the years have wanted to be challenged, seeing just how much higher they could achieve than the game standard. The remaining few were the toxic type you mentioned who just wanted to be able to brag and show off how powerful they are.

" Bikers are wimps" as the grey Hulk said