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

[Maxperson]

Curiously, in this regard, do you think that the initial class option of character creation should involve the same prerequisites outlined with multiclassing? Ie: rolling low or placing the 8 or 10 standard array into dex should prevent running a Rogue?

Yes, but I'm old school that way. I'm also a little conflicted. On one hand I think anyone who wants to be a rogue as his primary class or will lean heavily on that class should have a minimum of a +1 bonus, +2 is the probable baseline that the game assumes, so I wouldn't go lower than 1 point beneath that or the PC will have troubles.

However, I think that a small dip representing learning a bit of the class might not need that. A small dip is probably better represented by feats, though. Perhaps the class itself could require a 12 or 13 minimum, but there could be multi-class feats like backstab or cunning action that don't have minimum dex requirements.

 

[Malmuria]

Curiously, in this regard, do you think that the initial class option of character creation should involve the same prerequisites outlined with multiclassing? Ie: rolling low or placing the 8 or 10 standard array into dex should prevent running a Rogue?

Probably if someone wants to play a Rogue with an 8 dex they have a very specific concept they are going for. I think the "quick build" advice from the phb is enough to guide new players towards what their priority stats should be.

 

[Maxperson]

Probably if someone wants to play a Rogue with an 8 dex they have a very specific concept they are going for. I think the "quick build" advice from the phb is enough to guide new players towards what their priority stats should be.

I think that leaving it at 8 could lead some new players to make a gimped PC. I'd rather make the minimum 12-13 and let the DM make an exception for a player wanting lower than that, if for no other reason that the DM can make sure that the player understands what he's doing to his PC.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You're saying that anyone not putting the 15 in their main stat and then picking a race to get a bonus there is playing the game wrong. Me, I'm saying that the designers wouldn't try to force that to happen. They would want someone to play a mountain dwarf wizard with a 15 starting intelligence, so +2(15) is the most likely baseline.

First of all, I never said it was wrong, I'm talking about the expected baseline. The designers did not make the game assuming you would put your highest stats in your least important abilities. We know this because they directly stated the opposite in every single quick build in the game.

Secondly, you are close to the right answer. The didn't expect dwarven wizards. They presented a lot of routes to discourage dwarven wizards (to preserve the archetype perhaps) and so the baseline assumes you would not play a dwarven wizard.

65% proves nothing. 60% is still more likely that not.

So what you have is a first reason that assumes people who don't optimize are playing the game wrong and a second reason that is pure assumption based on 5% more, which proves nothing.

It shows the expected baseline progression of the game. I'm not saying the 60% is bad and evil, just that the math shows that the designers were likely balancing around a 65% success rate. That's it.

15 is not 16. A 14 or 15 in the prime stat is reasonable. An assumption that anyone who does not optimize is playing the game wrong is not.

Actually, it isn't reasonable to assume a 14 is your highest stat. And, even if it is, the majority of races are a +2, meaning that 14 can still be a 16.

Just to show the math and the charts, here is a link from anydice 4d6 Drop Lowest

The math shows that you have a 79.4% chance of rolling at least one 15. The chances of rolling all your stats and not getting at least one 14 that a +2 race could make a 16? That is 7.2%

The statistically most likely results from rolling? 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9. If you put your highest stat in your prime attirbute, even if you don't pick a race that boosts it, then your expected highest stat is likely a 16, giving you a +3.

So, standard array? Gives you a 15 and a 14.

Point Buy? Even if you absolutely try and balance every stat, you will have one 14. The highest stat you can get is a 15.

Rolling? you are likely to get a 16, and you are nearly guaranteed to at least get a 14.

Then as long as we assume your highest stat is your prime stat, and that the game designers wanted to encourage race/class combos where you pick a race that gives a bonus to your prime stat, then the most likely baseline is 16 in your prime stat.

The only way I could be wrong is if the designers expected and planned for the majority of players to "play against type". If they did not, and they planned most people would play the popular archetypes, then a 16 is the baseline.

You really don't understand how someone who feels(incorrectly) that they need to have +2 in their prime stat at first level would feel relief at Tasha's?

How are their feelings incorrect if those are the feelings they have? Are you saying you know their feelings better than they do?

Or do you think that because you can make a mechanically viable character who doesn't match the baseline then they shouldn't have had the feelings they have, and therefore you can dismiss those feelings as irrelevant?

Can you show the original post? I wouldn't have said that with regard to PC stats, so it's likely you're confusing me with one of the others in the thread that you've been discussing this with. That or the context was wildly different.

Oh, yeah. The context WAS wildly different. That's saying that the baseline racial bonus to the stat should be 0, for the reasons I lay out above. People who don't pick a race with a bonus are not playing the game wrong or gimping themselves.

AH, so you are just ignoring that the baseline racial stat bonus is +1. Unless humans are above the baseline in every single possible way.

Again, if you think the baseline should be playing against type, then you would be right. If you think the baseline is that the designers wanted to encourage people to play arcehtypical characters, then the baseline is 16.

You've completely fabricated me saying that the stat bonus should be 0, instead of +2. The above quote is clearly talking about racial bonuses to the stat itself, not the bonus the stat gives.

Which since I had to ask for clarification THREE TIMES, quoting you twice directly, maybe you weren't as "clear" as you think.

You do understand game balance and the limitations it imposes, right? Some people being incapable due to rules and not lack of ability doesn't mean that it cannot be learned. Regardless of whether or not a PC can learn it, it's still a learned skill and therefore not a racial ability. It's simply a cultural one.

So your complaint is entirely theoritical? The only problem is that, in theory, someone who can't learn something int he rules could potentially learn them in the world, even if no one ever does?

Personally, I don't care if the Elves are even seen as graceful. My NPCs are going to be doing what my NPCs do, and I couldn't care less about the stuff you seem to be obsessing over. Most of my blacksmiths have a 16 strength, because I want them to be perceived as strong, and that's what I need for a PC to see them as strong.

But you are against these rules simply because it won't match the biological reality you see and want to enforce. Whether or not they have a practical effect is secondary.

Sure. People can learn to do things on their own. It's how skills develop in the first place. Doesn't stop it from being a skill. And stories from novels or other game systems are not relevant to D&D which has made it a skill that can be learned.

Sure, but if you can only learn a skill related to a biological reality, then it isn't just a skill is it? Like the Cirque du Solie example you dropped.

Or, how about this. Breastfeeding is a skill, it takes a bit of practice and there are better ways to do it and worse ways to do it. As a man, no matter how much I try and learn, I can't learn to successfully breastfeed a baby. It is a skill, but that doesn't mean anyone can learn how to successful execute the skill.

Never grew a callus before?

Not one that I could retract back into my body. Or one that covered my entire body. Tell me, have you grown a full-body callus?

According to what you just said, all dragonborn can retract their claws without the need for a feat, since it's a racial thing you are born with the ability to do. Oh.......wait. No, apparently it's learned in D&D. A dragonborn that is 50 years old and hits 16th level can take the feat and learn to retract his claws after not being able to do so for 50 years of his life.

And your argument is since it is a learned skill, it can't speak towards a biological reality. Therefore, since the dragonborn can learn to retract their claws and harden their scales, a halfling can learn how to retract their claws and harden their scales.

If not, then even if a feat is a learned skill, that doesn't mean everyone can learn it.

Roll dice a lot. All I know is that it's a fact that it can be acquired later when the PC decides to learn a feat.

Okay, so you have no idea how you could learn it, but since the PC can decide to get it later, it must be learned.

The PC can decide to get +2 Dexteritiy later as well, therefore an elves +2 Dexterity is likely learned as well. It is already a learned ability, so it doesn't matter.

 

[Chaosmancer]

(EDIT: Oh and if they DID intend for a min of 16, then they really DID intend for races to be fundamentally tied to specific classes and archetypes.)

Exactly, they did intend that.

And the player base doesn't like that. Well, not all of us at least.

A lot of us don't like that Dwarves aren't supposed to be bards, because we have a cool dwarven bard idea. We don't like that Tieflings aren't supposed to be fighters, because we have a cool tiefling fighter idea.

And if those ideas are acceptable, then we should have the same baseline starting point.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Question to those who feel compelled to start with a +3 modifier in the class' main stat. The custom lineage in Tasha's gives you +2 to any stat and a feat. This can get you to 18 (with point buy/standard array) so a +4 modifier. Do you feel similarly compelled now to use the custom lineage exclusively and if not, why not?

No, because the baseline is a 16. I would like an 18 certainly, but that doesn't change the baseline.

 

[Yaarel]

While the racial ASIs are a mechanic that is tied in to what races mean. It's more than just tradition.

I ironically agree that the race ability score improvement has defined what a race "means". The reductionist tradition has reduced each race to almost nothing except an ability score improvement.

D&D 1e defined a "race" by means of a selection of ability modifiers and a prohibition against certain classes that the race is forbidden to take. This mechanical usage is the "essence" of what a race means. Other traits like darkvision (infrared) existed but were less consequential. The 1e mechanics were primitive and still evolving, and gaming culture was expected to express other characteristics about a race by means of "roleplay", such as if elves are supposed to be magical and artistic the players simply pretended them to be despite nothing about their 1e mechanics articulating their magical or artistic prowess. Indeed, 1e elves were forbidden to be innately psionic and forbidden to be Druids and therefor forbidden to be Bards. They could not reach high levels of Wizard (magic user), only the nonmagical Rogue (thief) was an unrestricted and unlimited class. Despite the narrative description of the opposite, the elves mechanically hated magic, hated nature, hated art, hated music, hated innate magic, and by the way, even hated being a gish (fighter / magic user). I find the 1e mechanics incompetent at cohering mechanics with the flavorful description. Unfortunately, this "tradition" has continued to straightjacket the elf mechanically, despite the dissonance of the flavor being the exact opposite. D&D roleplay required doublethink, holding two contradictions to be as if true simultaneously.

Fortunately, D&D mechanics continue to evolve. The class prohibitions and level restrictions were widely rejected immediately, and even 1e began the infinitude of elf subraces to slip past the race-class dissonance, and swap the ability score improvements. Similarly, mechanics to handicap female characters were widely rejected immediately.

By 2e much of the problematic 1e mechanics were gone. So elves can be Druid and powerful Wizard, and no more handicapping women.

3e systemized the random ad-hoc mechanics of 1e and 2e, by making ability bonuses the fundamental mechanic of the gaming system. Unfortunately, the dissonanant race ability score improvements carried over.

Inadvertantly, 3e thus made the earlier bad design whose bonus and flavor contradicted each other, into a fundamental definition of a race, with far reaching gaming consequences.

4e continued the ability score improvements but began making them fluid by granting choices of equally weighted ability combinations for each race. Moreover 4e gave each race a powerful race feat (like Misty Step teleportation) that was often as good as the ability score improvements. Moreover, later options often swapped race features, to specify certain flavorful tropes while maintaining balance (such as swapping weapon proficiency for spell focus or spell casting options).

Originally, 5e removed the race feats and doubleddown on a weighted ability score improvement restriction, even when it brightly contradicted the multiple flavors within a race. 5e used a heavy hammer to force a rounded race concept thru a square hole. Fortunately, the unwise start has softened, by 5e now making the ability scores float, to fluidly explore the many tropes and concepts that exist within each race.

In sum, the D&D tradition has made a "race" mean almost nothing except an ability score improvement. The other features are less significant, and peripheral as subraces or options. Besides their reallife historical origins from racist assumptions, the ability score improvements are less good gaming design, that prove too inflexible, and less able to quantify the various narrative descriptions with the race itself.

I hope D&D 5e returns to the tradition of powerful race feats and swappable options, for each race to be a more diverse and complex community.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's good that it's an option at least, if some people like it, but I'm glad it's only an option to avoid players forcing things at tables. That way DMs have the choice without pressure.

DMs have the choice for what? What does the DM have to do with my characters ability scores?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No, because the baseline is a 16. I would like an 18 certainly, but that doesn't change the baseline.

But that is just something you arbitrarily made up and not a real thing.

But I guess you would be fine with my houserules where everyone can get 16, but some species can get 18 in certain scores.

 

[Scribe]

Exactly, they did intend that.

And the player base doesn't like that. Well, not all of us at least.

A lot of us don't like that Dwarves aren't supposed to be bards, because we have a cool dwarven bard idea. We don't like that Tieflings aren't supposed to be fighters, because we have a cool tiefling fighter idea.

And if those ideas are acceptable, then we should have the same baseline starting point.

Again, with an assumption that 16 is the minimum. Which it is not. Its 15.

That is the baseline, upon which racial modifiers are then applied.

The game does not say Dwarves cannot be Bards, or that Tieflings cannot be fighters. 'Supposed' to be, is not a thing.

There are Attributes, Races, and Classes. The game was designed with archetypes in mind, but unlike prior editions, you are not explicitly forced to adhere to any combination Wizards deems acceptable. Feel free to roll that Orc wizard with the -2 Int, the game allows for it as it was designed to allow for it.