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

[Argyle King]

Random thought I had while in the car:

Would something like "wood elves don't suffer disadvantages for firing at long range with longbows" be more acceptable as a way to illustrate some idea of being more dexterous and/or being culturally familiar with certain weapons?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Are you even aware of what hit point are? Or are you aware and being disingenuous?

Or I just understand that hit points are abstract. Here, this might help you.


Yes it does. Tough just means hard to kill and there are many ways to represent that other than physical. The feat made no claim of physicality.

I am aware of the nature of hit points. I'm also aware that they are tied to constitution. So, if they are luck or skill or whatever else, then constitution probably covers that.

But, as much as I'd love to argue with you about how my hill dwarf Dragon Sorcerer is luckier than a halfling, it seems that would be a tangent compared to the other points.

If it's a learned skill, they can, but then they..............................................won't be more graceful and dexterous than other races.

If you want a racial ability to represent a higher level of grace and dexterity than say humans, then it's not a learned skill and you need the stat bonus in order to justify it. Otherwise it's nonsense.

So, it is fine for them to have learned skills. It is fine for those learned skills to mean that they are graceful and dexterous. But even if it turns out that only certain races are capable of learning how to be that graceful and dexterous, then it is nonsense because only a static +1 dexterity can mean you are graceful and dexterous, nothing else.

Well, you are just flat wrong. If nothing ever can mean graceful except a +1 dex, then you seemingly have such a narrow view that it is literally impossible and pointless to try and find any solution, because the only thing you will ever accept is what is behind us.

That was a nice try, but no. The problem still exists.

I've noticed. You simply refuse to allow anything to be meaningful except static +1 ASI's .

Do you not know what dexterous means?

Do you not understand what "average" means? Or "population distribution"?

Holy way off into left field Batman! No, nothing I said comes close to touching on eugenics. Jeebus man, rein yourself in and get some perspective.

Really? Eugenics is basically just selective breeding for humans for certain traits, combined with believing in superior genes.

You said your elf PC knows that elves are more dexterous than humans. Which is false. And that this fact is important to them. The average elf is typically more dexterous than the average human, by a margin of +1 Dex. Does this mean it is true to say that "elves are more dexterous than humans". No. Not only does that statement seem as though it is absolutist in a way that makes it false when speaking about a statistical average over an entire population, but it also ignores that in a tiny span of a few years, those humans could easily learn to be equally or superiorly dexterous to elves.

And, ignoring that, to make it an important facet of your beliefs that elves are genetically more graceful than humans, across the board, well... that dances "gracefully" on razor's edge over that particular abyss.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Do you think perhaps this might highlight a problem in D&D with some stats being more or less useful?

Absolutely it plays into it. If I'm a wizard, I probably quite literally have no use for strength. Sure, maybe my backline character might get grappled by a melee monster, but even that is something I can get out of without a strength score. And there is also no reason for me to really invest in charisma. Meanwhile the fighter has pretty much no use for Intelligence or charisma, other than making skill checks that someone else probably does better.

But other than rolling well, the game seems utterly allergic to letting you have +2's in tertiary and below numbers... unless you want to gimp your primary stat.

Obviously, something directly related to your primary role in the party will be desirable. However, I think a better game would be one in which the penalty for trying to dabble a bit in a different area (pillar of play or just having a less 1-dimensional character) isn't seen as so crippling and unoptimized that building a character seems more organic than working toward a MMO build.

I said something related to this earlier in the thread, but perhaps races could be viewed through the lens of play pillars as well as through the lens of what is good for particular classes and combat roles.

A strong race (or one with a damage-dealing ability) might be better for classes looking to focus on damage or for a player who wants to put more resources toward doing damage; but a different race with abilities geared toward exploration, social, or something else could give someone playing the same class a tradeoff: less direct damage and specialization in exchange for breadth of options and having an ability to pick up the slack in other areas when necessary. I think there's a way to do that and make both options attractive to a player looking to make a choice.

I think that could be cool

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is why rolled ability scores vs point buys or spreads make the game better, and DM's should be strict with it. Yes, the Elf gets +2 to DEX and the Tiefling gets +2 to CHA. But if the Elf player rolls a 12, his DEX is 14. The Tiefling player might roll an 18. Who's the better rogue then? Luck plays a role.

In my most recent playing experiences, latitude in character building (The 'everything goes' method) leads to players concentrating solely on mechanics and everything else about the character falls by the wayside.

I'm currently playing a cleric in a 2E Ravenloft campaign, and his highest ability score is a 13 WIS. The reason he's a cleric is because the DM called for straight 3d6 rolls, right down the stats, no mercy and no re-arranging, and that was as good as it got. Y'know what? I'm enjoying the hell out of this weak, uncharismatic, not-very-wise cleric.

And I've played characters like that, and I did not enjoy myself. Being bad at everything is not what I want for my characters. And if the DM is going to adjust encounters to make it so the party isn't overwhelmed, I'd be happier with them having to adjust up because everyone is skilled.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Do you think perhaps this might highlight a problem in D&D with some stats being more or less useful?

Yeah this is absolutely the core of the problem. Not just more or less useful in an absolute sense, but more or less useful on a class by class basis.

When a highly intelligent warrior can win duels* against warriors who are just strong, none of this will be an issue.

*Using just the RAW combat rules, not arbitrary DM interpretation.

 

[abirdcall]

This is why rolled ability scores vs point buys or spreads make the game better, and DM's should be strict with it. Yes, the Elf gets +2 to DEX and the Tiefling gets +2 to CHA. But if the Elf player rolls a 12, his DEX is 14. The Tiefling player might roll an 18. Who's the better rogue then? Luck plays a role.

In my most recent playing experiences, latitude in character building (The 'everything goes' method) leads to players concentrating solely on mechanics and everything else about the character falls by the wayside.

I'm currently playing a cleric in a 2E Ravenloft campaign, and his highest ability score is a 13 WIS. The reason he's a cleric is because the DM called for straight 3d6 rolls, right down the stats, no mercy and no re-arranging, and that was as good as it got. Y'know what? I'm enjoying the hell out of this weak, uncharismatic, not-very-wise cleric.

In 5e rolled ability scores are bad, primarily for 2 reasons.

1. Nowhere to progress to when gaining ASIs.
2. If playing with feats they become overpowered as the tradeoff for an ASI is much lower.

I just don't think 5e works well with both feats and rolled scores.

Our table uses the Standard Array and couldn't be happier.

 

[abirdcall]

I think the key is that some people like ASI to the degree that it incentivizes certain race/class combinations that feel like classic archetypes, either in reference to fantasy literature or just to dnd itself. In my experience, players, often guided by the dm (myself included) will end up following these incentives, thus creating elven archers, tiefling warlocks, halfling rogues, gnome wizards, and so on. This being the case, when a player decides to do something non-"optimized" (again the statistical difference is slight) it feels different because it's not so common. (and I guess some people interpret player options to be valid for the entire race in the implied setting, but that still baffles me).

This approach has a couple shortcomings. One, it's a quite roundabout way of reinforcing archetype. I can see the appeal of archetype, but if you want that game...just play OSE. Or 5 Torches Deep. Or, pick up the free basic rules for 5e and just play with those. The options included just in the PHB can easily produce race/class combinations that veer away from classic archetypes, and that's before even getting to the inevitable options bloat for any edition.* Two, people want 5e to be a more open-ended game. They want to look at a character from a comic, or videogame, or movie, and try to recreate that character using 5e rules. It's not even playing against type, because it's just a different set of archetypes/figures all together. And race ASI just gets in the way of that. Of course anything is possible, you can play a slightly unoptimized character etc etc, but I think for a lot of people it's a legacy of the game that hasn't really been relevant for a while.

*case in point

Is a Tiefling Paladin against type? Because in 5e, Paladin synergies with Tiefling charisma bonus.

I don't understand your objections.

You say people can play against type and just have a "slight" difference in ability but then go on to say this is terrible because going against type is unplayable?

Then you say that people play D&D to be able to play all genres and possible reference materials.

I don't think that's true and D&D would be terrible if it was actually designed to be a generic fantasy RPG.

It should and does have an identity all its own. It is ludicrously popular compared to what it has ever been before and RPGs in general and I think that is proof that people like it this way.

 

[abirdcall]

Random thought I had while in the car:

Would something like "wood elves don't suffer disadvantages for firing at long range with longbows" be more acceptable as a way to illustrate some idea of being more dexterous and/or being culturally familiar with certain weapons?

For me that's too specific. I want to encourage and reinforce archetypes but I don't want a situation where Wood Elves have Sharpshooter or whatever and so they all end up being archers.

 

[abirdcall]

But that argument can go both ways--if it's such a small difference, then floating or removing the racial asi won't make such a big impact either, either in mechanical effectiveness or on theme of a race.

But it does though, that's the thing.

It doesn't have much of an impact in actual play but it does have a huge impact on what decisions players make regarding creating their character.

And that's why it works and should be kept.

 

[Malmuria]

I don't understand your objections.

You say people can play against type and just have a "slight" difference in ability but then go on to say this is terrible because going against type is unplayable?

I don't think anything is terrible or unplayable (because ultimately the ASI itself is just a +5%, not super meaningful). But as you note in the other post, racial asi does encourage certain race-class combinations, and so is an attempted means to reinforce particular classic archetypes (halfling thief, etc). I just think that's a weak and indirect (relative to other editions) way of reinforcing those archetypes.

Then you say that people play D&D to be able to play all genres and possible reference materials.

I don't think that's true and D&D would be terrible if it was actually designed to be a generic fantasy RPG.

It should and does have an identity all its own. It is ludicrously popular compared to what it has ever been before and RPGs in general and I think that is proof that people like it this way.

My hypothesis would be that some people come to dnd wanting those classic fantasy archetypes, but a lot of people come also with other ideas, archetypes, and characters from other genres. We can see even in the published settings for 5e (Ebberon, Ravenloft, Theros, Ravnica). I don't think it's a dealbreaker to if you want to create, say, a dwarven artificer for a steampunk setting, but neither is the ASI doing any work for you either. Playing with or against against archetype is not meaningful when a player or a setting isn't really invested in those archetypes one way or another.