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

[Crimson Longinus]

Would you say that dnd is the best system for modeling those kind of differences? I would think something like a CoC-style % system would do a much better job (if still quite abstracted for the purposes of making a playable game)

I don't think percentage systems generally are good for anything. But ultimately if attributes are to be part of D&D I'd prefer them to actually represent something*. If they don't and are just a method of generating your mandatory level appropriate attack bonuses etc, then just get rid of them.

* Which is not to say that they need to represent things particularly well or accurately, D&D is pretty abstract game after all. I just want there to be some sensible correlation; things that are stronger in fiction have better strength scores, thigs that are more agile in the fiction have better dex scores etc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Dungeons & Dragons offers a specific brand of fantasy. Prescribed racial abilities are part of the brand.

That being said, D&D also sets out to be accommodating to those who want something different at their own tables. That's where extended options like those made available in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything come into play.

I fully expect that a future Player's Handbook will present races with prescribed racial abilities as the brand has always done, but will also include the variant made available in TCoE.

I think Wizards of the Coast is eager to please the whole of their fanbase the best they can, but they also have a branded experience dating back nearly half a century that they're trying to protect.

I disagree. Companies get skiddish when they start to hear loud complaints about their product. I fully expect an overreaction leading to Tasha as the default for everyone. Hopefully, they'll still include the prescribed bonuses as an option for each race, but I doubt it.

 

[mrpopstar]

I disagree. Companies get skiddish when they start to hear loud complaints about their product. I fully expect an overreaction leading to Tasha as the default for everyone. Hopefully, they'll still include the prescribed bonuses as an option for each race, but I doubt it.

The makings of a good bet!

 

[Faolyn]

You're still objectively wrong about that. There have been official sources that included non-evil goblins and I've shown them to you more than once.

You have shown me 1 (one) culture--Thesk--that contained orcs, humans, and gnomes, last written about nearly 20 years ago (and then mentioned in a fan project a bit later on), two editions ago, where the orcs were raiders who got "civilized" due to the influence of the humans and gnomes.

Don't pretend that you've inundated me with sources here.

 

[Malmuria]

Based on the conversations in this thread, I think it's obvious that some of us only care about the pc goliaths, but some of us very much do care about the rest of the population and how it is represented by the rules in game.

Or, conversely, that the character options need not be representative of everything that is in the fiction of the game. If you are playing a 1e game, your dwarf is not allowed to be a cleric. But that's just the character option, and not representative of the game world: as indicated by the 1e monster manual description for dwarf, dwarf clerics exist in the implied setting, because the PCs might encounter them.

 

[Maxperson]

Because everyone knows that a Minotaur and a Mountain Dwarf are equally matched in a wrestling match, a Kenku is just as good with a bow as an elf, and a hobgoblin can match an endurance match with a warforged.

Congrats! You can find some similarities. Nobody is arguing that you can't do that, though. We're saying that stat bonuses serve to help differentiate races. So while kenku and elves are both good with bows, neither can match hobgoblins or warforged for endurance. That's a difference. Making all races the same with identical floating bonuses for all, homogenizes the races and makes them more human.

How? Seriously, I just can't wrap my head around it. Like in the way it is easier to pick up a penny instead of a nickel? Because houseruling them into hard code is trivially easy. I've never understood how someone can see this as so difficult. Plus, even if they aren't hard coded you can make the same decision

That's a very easy question to answer. The reason is not the technical aspect of hard code vs. reversing the hard code. Those are identically easy. The reason it's harder is pushback. Humans as a species resent having things taken away, so it's FAR easier to take the hard code and make it floating(loosen restrictions), than to take away the floating ASI's and hard code them(add restrictions).

In short, the answer to your question of "how?" is human nature.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Or, conversely, that the character options need not be representative of everything that is in the fiction of the game. If you are playing a 1e game, your dwarf is not allowed to be a cleric. But that's just the character option, and not representative of the game world: as indicated by the 1e monster manual description for dwarf, dwarf clerics exist in the implied setting, because the PCs might encounter them.

That is something I would find annoying. It would make it a pointless restriction that doesn't represent anything. Now if it was a part of the setting that gods simply hate dwarves and thus never give them clerical magic it would be absolutely fine.

 

[Maxperson]

So, a few mistakes here. Easily made, but still mistakes.

Humans get a +1 strength, so Goliaths actually only get a +1 over humans.

My bad. I've only seen one non-variant human, so I forgot that they get +1 to all stats as a base

I'm not talking about their ability, only their strength. Note that that ability blew the scale out of the water, compared to just having the bonus. I mean, it isn't even a question who is stronger if you look at at these two scales.

(8 - 36) vs (16 - 72)

But this set up is, like I said, way more head scratching

That's why for balance reasons you just give Goliaths a +2 and be done with it.

(8 - 36) vs (9 - 37) Even if I say that the human is floating so the goliath should be (10 - 37) it is still.. basically nothing. And in fact, it is more noticeable as a raising of the floor than a cap of the top. And the thing is... narratively, that doesn't matter.

It matters when you realize that Goliaths should hit hard than humans due to being stronger. Perhaps they should have +3 to strength and no +1.

See, here is the problem with your "fact". It isn't a fact, it is a tautology.

How is Goliaths being able to lift twice what humans can a tautology? From where I'm sitting, that's a fact.

Goliaths are stronger than humans because they have a +2 strength, and they have a +2 strength because they are stronger than humans, and because they are stronger than humans they have a +2 strength.

No. That's not my argument. Goliaths can lift twice what humans can(fact), making them much stronger than humans(fact), therefore they should get a +2 strength bonus is my argument.

Weird. Seems fixed. The things that weren't working before are working now. IT seems more like it just... you don't like it and that is also a subjective opinion.

It was working before. Your preference for floating ASI's doesn't break the game as it was run prior. Nothing broken=nothing to fix.

So, with no knowledge of her family history, or even if she trained, you want to argue that it was a fact that she trained better than him?

Physiology doesn't change in 100 years, let alone so drastically. She is not evidence that somehow women were stronger than men 100 years ago.

If you want to argue facts, go do some research into her training methods. But my point was fairly simple. In the 1920's no one thought a woman could outlift the strongest man in the world, it was impossible. She did it anyways.

Cool beans. That doesn't change my argument or the facts.

Today, no one things a woman can outlift the strongest man in the world.... but does that mean it is actually impossible? Or just incredibly unlikely? Of course it would be incredibly difficult, maybe it borders on impossible, but that doesn't mean it actually is impossible.

It is impossible. At least at the top. It's a fact that training methods and achieving top human performance has improved drastically even over the last few decades, let alone 100 years. In 1989 the gap for 82.5k(weight of lifter) was Women: 210kg Men :390kg. So now you're basically arguing that physiology changed over 70 years. It didn't.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Based on the conversations in this thread, I think it's obvious that some of us only care about the pc goliaths, but some of us very much do care about the rest of the population and how it is represented by the rules in game.

I do think a core difference in opinion, which is unlikely to be resolved through arguing, is whether the rules in the PHB on character creation are meant to (or should) be reflective of the entire population, or whether they are literally only for creating player characters.

And it's probably also pretty human to use our preferred interpretation to defend our position on the rules, when really it's the other way around: we choose an interpretation based on whether or not it supports our preferred rules. I know which interpretation I prefer, and which rule I prefer, and...hey, it's like magic!...they coincide. I honestly can't tell you which is the cart and which is the horse, though. Human brains are funny that way.

 

[Malmuria]

That is something I would find annoying. It would make it a pointless restriction that doesn't represent anything. Now if it was a part of the setting that gods simply hate dwarves and thus never give them clerical magic it would be absolutely fine.

The point being that the character options don't have to be representative of the game world as a whole, and in fact if you go back to early versions of the game (1e and basic) the options and limitations for races were, in fact, not representative of the game world as a whole. They included things like class and level restriction partially to reinforce archetypes for the PCs (and not in the broader game world), and partially for the sake of game balance. Removing those restrictions did not get rid of the archetypes and did not, by itself, mess up the game balance.

Another example: by the logic of this thread, you might assume that gnomes got a penalty to str. But no--in 1e and 2e gnomes get no penalty to str (halflings did). It wasn't until 3e that gnomes got a -2 to str. What we remember as "tradition" or the way it's always been is often the half-remembered haze of play culture, house rules, and splat books that were part of our particular early experience with the game and that we generalize and universalize.