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

[Scribe]

Have you tried it?

Yes.

There is zero reason to not min/max, and the stat's have no logical connection or expression to the setting or world. For me personally its absolutely a non-starter.

 

[Yaarel]

Yes.

There is zero reason to not min/max, and the stat's have no logical connection or expression to the setting or world. For me personally its absolutely a non-starter.

What kind of character concepts have you built?

Were they strictly a class concept?

Did you think about how this character would grow up and participate in and relate to a race cultures community?

 

[BookTenTiger]

Yes.

There is zero reason to not min/max, and the stat's have no logical connection or expression to the setting or world. For me personally its absolutely a non-starter.

Would you also say it's min maxing to choose a race that gives you the best ability score improvements for your class?

 

[Malmuria]

Yes.

There is zero reason to not min/max, and the stat's have no logical connection or expression to the setting or world. For me personally its absolutely a non-starter.

I recently created a character for a new game. The character is a warlock, not a rogue, but has a kind of rouge-ish background (prone to stealing things and fixing card games). I used the floating ASI to accentuate this by putting the +2 into dex. So here's an example of how I used the floating ASI to tie the character more into her background and also the setting of the dm, rather than to optimize by putting it into charisma.

Now, is that +5% going to matter a whole lot once we start playing and I'm rolling sleight of hand checks? A little bit (5%, to be exact). Nevertheless, to the extent that it makes any difference, the floating ASI can absolutely be used to build a connection to the setting and the character's specific history within that setting.

 

[Faolyn]

This is what I was responding to:

An argument that people imagine half-orc with same strength as an elf to be stronger. To me this sounded like saying that the stats are not the actual measure of who is stronger. Except now Faolyn says that they are... So the half-or is not stronger, but for some reason people still imagine they are? And this is somehow a good thing? Certainly the rules should try to align with how people imagine things to be and a disconnect between these two leads to dissonance and is undesirable?

You really misread or misunderstood what I wrote.

If you saw a person who was super-scary looking (Menacing), could stand right up after taking a blow that would kill another person (Relentless Endurance), and whose attacks could be devastatingly powerful (Savage Attacks), wouldn't you assume that person was stronger than someone who didn't have those abilities?

And I still don't understand your stance here because an elf with a longbow and Dex 18 is going to inflict the exact same damage as a half-orc with a longsword and Str 18, so what's the problem with an elf using a longsword (which they come pre-proficient in!) and deciding to focus on Strength instead of Dex?

Are you just bothered by the idea that a half-orc may not be able to out-lift an elf?

 

[Faolyn]

No, we need additional bonus/penalty caps on Stats, Racial Feats, racial Paragon abilities, to properly differentiate between the various PC options.

What we dont need, is the removal of these systems if we are looking to have different PC options beyond 'kinda not humans'.

No, we don't need additional bonus/penalty caps on Stats. Just because you have a hard time grokking the idea of an unusual individual doesn't mean everyone else needs to be penalized.

Nor do we need to remove or not remove systems because you have a hard time playing an inhuman character without a mechanical incentive for doing so.

 

[Scribe]

Would you also say it's min maxing to choose a race that gives you the best ability score improvements for your class?

Yes.

Were they strictly a class concept?

Yes.

Did you think about how this character would grow up and participate in and relate to a race cultures community?

No. Considering the stats are no longer connected to race in this example, background and culture have no mechanical impact on increasing or decreasing the stats, they exist in a Floating world as nothing but numericals that say nothing beyond +1, or +2 on various rolls.

They lose any relevance to the world building portion of the game, and are nothing but modifiers expressed differently.

Again, if YOU both enjoy this process, that is utterly fantastic.

For ME, its a higher level of abstraction, and detracts from the connection between rules, lore, and the world/setting.

 

[Scribe]

No, we don't need additional bonus/penalty caps on Stats. Just because you have a hard time grokking the idea of an unusual individual doesn't mean everyone else needs to be penalized.

Nor do we need to remove or not remove systems because you have a hard time playing an inhuman character without a mechanical incentive for doing so.

I dont have a hard time at all. I'm not the one constantly asking for you all to prove why you like something.

Nice assumptions however, your continued reading beyond the text, looking for hidden meaning and making broad determinations that are utterly unfounded seems to work for you.

 

[Faolyn]

I dont have a hard time at all. I'm not the one constantly asking for you all to prove why you like something.

Funny how everything I've read of yours on this topic indicates that you really can't tolerate the changes that are being made.

 

[Scribe]

Funny how everything I've read of yours on this topic indicates that you really can't tolerate the changes that are being made.

I dont care at all if you have access to Tasha's.

While we understand that you enjoy watching others lose something they enjoy, I dont share that same spite.