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

[Umbran]

Like the humans actually are basically the same, and it is racist to say that one ethnicity is somehow seriously different that another. But if we cannot say that about fantasy races, they cannot exist because the bloody point is that they're different than humans (and each other.)

The bloody point is that "this is fictional and therefore doesn't matter" is fundamentally incorrect.

The fact that, indeed, my housecat and myself are radically different beings isn't the bloody point. The bloody point is that people are people, and we are very, very quick to use people badly, and we have responsibilities with respect to people that we don't have to the fiction.

 

[AverageMojito]

That's just a left over artifact from the days before finesse allowed anyone to use Dexterity for to hit bonuses. Just being able to use a longsword even without the Strength bonus opened up some opportunities for the elf PC. It'd make more sense for them to favor the rapier these days.

Oh, yeah. The designers kept a legacy that made no sense by 5E standards (like some other stuff).

I've found it very useful to take the +2 to where I want it for the character, and the +1 in a stat that's traditionally strong for the race. It helps support the race's theme, without sacrificing too much of what you want for the character.

Or even other way around as getting that 16 in the class' primary stat is what people seem to care about. I really feel Tasha's went a bit too far with this. Being able to shift one bonus point to other stat would have been enough to satisfy the desire for 16 and would have still retained some of the flavour.

After a brief look at the standard array many years ago, I've switched to +2 fixed/+1 any, as @Crimson Longinus mentions, and it worked like a charm. Never went back. +2 any/+1 fixed is nice, too, although I prefer the former, and I find them both as good as we can get in terms of middle ground between fixed lineage/racial ASI and Tasha's.

I've had a lot of fun playing this character! It's the very definition of playing "against type."

However, let's say someone else wanted to play a Dwarf Wizard. If they went through all the same hoops I did, they would just have... the same Dwarf Wizard, playing against type. On the other hand, they could use the Tasha's rule to just have a high Intelligence, and be an effective Evoker or Abjurer or whatever.

It's good to remember that those "types we play against" only exist because of restrictions in former editions of the game, so, mainly historical game baggage in the mind. A dwarf wizard, no matter what the scores, was against type in 3E simply because they didn't exist at all before (1E/2E), for example.
I imagine a group of players entirely new to the game, if presented with Tasha's custom lineage from the very beggining, might not feel they are playing against type at all with their Orc Bard, Elf Barbarian, and Dwarf Warlock. And if they are presented with a setting like Eberron (which I like), so long "traditional types"...

Edit: misspelling

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The bloody point is that "this is fictional and therefore doesn't matter" is fundamentally incorrect.

Sure. Not disagreeing with that.

The fact that, indeed, my housecat and myself are radically different beings isn't the bloody point. The bloody point is that people are people, and we are very, very quick to use people badly, and we have responsibilities with respect to people that we don't have to the fiction.

Right. I am not disagreeing with that either. I am just trying to figure out what exactly it entails in this context.

 

[the Jester]

The fact that PH humans get either +1 across the board or +1/+1 and PH elves get +2 Dex/+1 something else means next nothing other than the most dexterous 1st-level point-buy elf is going to be marginally more dexterous than the most dexterous 1st-level point-buy human.

It means significantly more if you roll for stats.

Come to think of it, that distinction- my game, and the games I play in, all use rolling for stats- is almost certainly a part of where I'm coming from on this topic.

Also- there's an argument against set racial stat modifiers that basically says, in the end, my halfling can be just as strong as your half-orc (after ASIs), so why bother with keeping the racial modifiers set to certain stats? The reasoning goes that there are many other ways that races can be rendered distinct. I think one thing that would help preserve "races are different" would be having modifiers to your maximum ability scores, so (f'rex) an elf's max Dex could reach 22. This would reinforce the elven tendency to be slightly more dexterous than other races, especially at the top end of things. (Of course, it also pushes the bounds on the math. Hm.)

 

[Malmuria]

Sure. I am not disagreeing wit that at all. But some people seem to say that any biological essentialism is problematic, which logically must mean that fantasy species cannot exist. Also, "Can see in the dark and trances instead of sleeps" is probably about as problematic than "tends to be physically stronger than a human."

Like the humans actually are basically the same, and it is racist to say that one ethnicity is somehow seriously different that another. But if we cannot say that about fantasy races, they cannot exist because the bloody point is that they're different than humans (and each other.)

I think you have to look at the whole picture to see what's problematic or not. I think in particular the "strong but stupid" archetype should be avoided as a species-wide descriptor not only because of biological essentialism, but because of the specific resonances that theme has for real world racism. It might not make 'logical' sense that that is more of a problem than something like "agile but not charismatic" in the fiction of the world that you are building, but it does make sense as a trope to avoid given that readers/players exist in the real world. Similarly, saying that all humans need to sleep and all elves need to trance might be essentialist but is not as problematic as saying that a particular humanoid creature is inherently "slothful" (even if no mechanic is tied to that description, in fact).

 

[Faolyn]

It means significantly more if you roll for stats.

Yeah; I had a character start out with a 20 in a stat once.

Also- there's an argument against set racial stat modifiers that basically says, in the end, my halfling can be just as strong as your half-orc (after ASIs), so why bother with keeping the racial modifiers set to certain stats? The reasoning goes that there are many other ways that races can be rendered distinct. I think one thing that would help preserve "races are different" would be having modifiers to your maximum ability scores, so (f'rex) an elf's max Dex could reach 22. This would reinforce the elven tendency to be slightly more dexterous than other races, especially at the top end of things. (Of course, it also pushes the bounds on the math. Hm.)

If all else between a halfing and a half-orc was the same, then there would be a point. But in reality, half-orcs can use heavy weapons without penalty and can do extra damage on a crit (and full orcs can carry more because of Powerful Build), so for most gaming purposes, an orc will be "stronger" than a halfling even if they have equal Strength scores.

Having different racial maxes could help, although I'm not sure that this would be good at describing a tendency, unless you have a world where enough elves have 22 Dex that it can be called a tendency. It would be more like "some rare elves are unnaturally dexterous."

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can take away some mechanics from D&D and have it still be D&D, or we wouldn't have 5 editions of mechanics churn. Where the line exists that defines any one mechanic as necessary to the feel of D&D is blurry at best, and can really only be guessed at by surveying the play population in aggregate.

I'll certainly agree that you and several other posters seem to feel that attribute bonuses are a necessary condition to maintain the feel of D&D races; I don't think that's been anywhere near proven for the market as a whole. I'm certainly not saying you're definitely wrong, but my gut feeling is that the market as a whole cares very little. I think getting rid of race/ancestry entirely as a choice, or making it entirely freeform would be a bridge too far, yes.

Well, I suspect many things people on social media are concerned about in gaming right now dont necessarily mean a great deal to the market as a whole, but there's no way to know until changes are made and sales go up or down.

 

[jmartkdr2]

There's no on-curve. The math in D&D is not that tight. The math of monsters is all over the place. Your elf barbarian will be just as fun.

You can also take the feat with your elf, once again, being having a +3 instead of a +2 or vice-versa does very little in the whole experience of playing D&D.

It makes a difference if every time you look at the character sheet you think "I could have had a higher number."

Fear of Missing Out isn't about rational cost-benefit optimization, really. It's about not leaving opportunities behind.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It is interesting that you suggest playing without feats as a solution to not having an 'interesting' character sue to lack of feats.

In a game I just started I told a new player to 5e that we use feats but not GWM or SS. He was concerned that he wouldn't be able to play his concept of an archer. I told him we can just play without any feats if it makes him feel better.

We are playing the game now and he feels like an awesome archer even without the feat.

The extra +1 is not really necessary in actual play. I get that conceptually the character doesn't look exceptional on paper for the class but they get to be unique and bring different abilities to the table which should be worth something.

Remove the option and Fear of Missing Out no longer applies.

 

[le Redoutable]

again with my system of +/-
Halfling : Highest stat would be Dex, and lowest Stat would be Str