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

[Maxperson]

So, to pick an example, it negatively affects your experience if your expectation in a game world is that a halfling must be level 4 to have a 17 strength, and a player who doesn’t share that expectation shows up with a 1st level halfling with 17 strength?

Or am I totally in the weeds? If so, I’d love an illustrative example of what you mean.

A halfling can have an 18 strength at level 1 if he rolls an 18 and puts it into strength.

 

[Maxperson]

With rolled and floating ASIs, your odds of starting with a 16 is 7,25%, 17 4,2% and 18 1,62%. If you only care for the main stat and can freely assign, one character in 10 will start with a 18+2 at level 1, one in four with a 19 and nearly half with get a 16+2. If one considers that 16 or 17 is the baseline for effectiveness, rolled stats have good chances of allowing it irrespective of how the racial ASIs are attributed. Starting with 20 isn't the boon it seems, since some excellent half-feat would lose a lot of their appeal. With racials ASIs, it is still possible to get a starting 17 in you main stat even if the racial ASI goes to another stat (though the odds are around 1 in 4).

With rolled stats you have a 9.34% chance of your highest stat being an 18, a 30.07% chance of your highest stat being a 17, a 56.76% chance of your highest stat being a 16 and a 79.40% chance of your highest stat being a 15. That's before racial or floating ASIs.

There's also a 43.16% chance of having two 15's as your high, and a 14.13% chance of there being 3.

4d6 Drop Lowest

What to expect when rolling 4d6 drop lowest for your DnD ability scores.

anydice.com

 

[Maxperson]

In 1e, a "race" meant a racist stereotype, complete with requirements to roleplay racist supremacism and hate, including a table listing which race hates which race.

Um, no. In 1e a "race" meant human, elf, dwarf, halfling, etc. It did not mean a racist stereotype. There were also no requirements whatsoever on how to play any particular race. None. It was 100% up to the player.

You're way off base with this racist tangent.

 

[Yaarel]

A halfling can have an 18 strength at level 1 if he rolls an 18 and puts it into strength.

So, why not a halfling with a 20 Strength like an orc? Why handicap the halfling until level 4? Why punish the halfling player by losing a feat?

 

[Maxperson]

So, why not a halfling with a 20 Strength like an orc? Why handicap the halfling until level 4? Why punish the halfling player by losing a feat?

A halfling can have a 20 strength like an orc. There is no handicap at all. A 0 is baseline, not a handicap. That's how life works. If there is a negative, it's a handicap. If it's average, it's baseline. If there is a positive, it's a bonus.

Waiting until level 4 isn't a handicap or punishment. It's simply that halflings as a race do not get a BONUS.

 

[Yaarel]

Um, no. In 1e a "race" meant human, elf, dwarf, halfling, etc. It did not mean a racist stereotype. There were also no requirements whatsoever on how to play any particular race. None. It was 100% up to the player.

You're way off base with this racist tangent.

The instruction to roleplay a racist supremacist is on page 18 of the D&D 1e Players Handbook, in the "Racial Preferences Table". For example, gnome player characters have "strong hatred" against half-orc player characters.

Even in later editions of D&D, this tradition of a full-on racist worldview perpetuates.

 

[Malmuria]

In 1e, a "race" meant a racist stereotype, complete with requirements to roleplay racist supremacism and hate, including a table listing which race hates which race.

The subversive angle is, there is only one human race.

But the gaming assumption is full-on racist worldview. Defacto, these nonhuman races gained narrative descriptions that are reallife racist tropes about various ethnic groups.

The origins of D&D "races" is reallife racism.

2e phb:

Dwarves like the earth and dis- like the sea. Not overly fond of elves, they have a fierce hatred of orcs and goblins.

to be fair, 3e expanded on this quite a bit for all races:

Relations: Dwarves get along fine with gnomes, and passably with humans, half-elves, and halflings. Dwarves say, “The difference between an acquaintance and a friend is about a hundred years.” Humans, with their short life spans, have a hard time forging truly strong bonds with dwarves. The best dwarf-human friendships
are between a human and a dwarf who liked the human’s parents and grandparents. Dwarves fail to appreciate elves’ subtlety and art, regarding elves as unpredictable, fickle, and flighty. Still, elves and dwarves have, through the ages, found common cause in battles against orcs, goblins, and gnolls; and elves have earned the dwarves’ grudging respect. Dwarves mistrust half-orcs in general, and the feeling is mutual. Luckily, dwarves are fair-minded, and they grant individual half-orcs the opportunity to prove themselves.

And a version of it exists in 5e (e.g. the "Slow to Trust" sidebar on p. 19 of the phb), but they take out the idea that one race necessarily has to hate another one.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

So, why not a halfling with a 20 Strength like an orc? Why handicap the halfling until level 4? Why punish the halfling player by losing a feat?

To undestand your position, how do you feel about Xanatar's racial feats? And even, about other mechanical differences in playable races?
Because the reasoning that "if an orc can be 20 STR, then a halfling can, at the exact same point of their mechanical progression" may also apply to halfling luck (why should an orc wait level 4 to become lucky as well?)

 

[Maxperson]

The instruction to roleplay a racist supremacist is on page 18 of the D&D 1e Players Handbook, in the "Racial Preferences Table". For example, gnome player characters have "strong hatred" against half-orc player characters.

Even in later editions of D&D, this full-on tradition of a racist worldview perpetuates.

There was no requirement to follow that as a player. It just said to consider it, because the DM would probably be using it with NPCs and such. In any case, pretend fantasy racism is not real racism.

 

[Malmuria]

There was no requirement to follow that as a player. It just said to consider it, because the DM would probably be using it with NPCs and such. In any case, pretend fantasy racism is not real racism.

Well, the castles, towns, and forests in your world are fiction fantasy castles, towns and forests, not real ones. But they are modeled after the real world. Similarly, the way that different races (or, tbh, human cultures within fantasy settings) are defined model aspects of the real world racist world view. Having to fictionally inhabit such a world is upsetting, uncomfortable, or annoying for some.