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

[le Redoutable]

I am wondering if ASIs have the same result when doing standard array and rolled stats.

With standard array, you are sure to get a 15. You need the ASI to get to 16 or 17 (to set yourself up for a half-feat at level 4) and reach 20 at level 8 in all cases.

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).

Since there is no way to have more than 20 and many want to have the ability to be "the best", I wonder if the whole ASIs debate wouldn't be less important if the point-buy allowed for scores up to 18 and standard array was replaced with heroic array 17, 16, 15, 14, 12, 10 ? And have more half-feats?

I feel that the need to have floating ASIs is to be able to ensure the match of 15+2, because starting with 15 is perceived subpar. Maybe being less restrictive on the array would solve part of this problem?



(Slight tengeant: after playing with standard array for a long time, I just started a new campaign (pitch: a Cannith branch endeavouring to restore Cannith's former greatness). We had been playing with standard arrays for a long time and this time a player asked to roll for stats, and we ended up, all the dragon-marked Cannith characters, with a very lucky rolling session (12, 16, 13, 17, 15, 13 and I wasn't even the luckiest). I must admit that I wasn't convinced of that "rolling stats will define your character" because I usually enjoy writing the backstory before creating the mechanical aspects of the character but in this case... with the good rolls, our Cannith branch really, and mechanically, think themselves as Cannith/Malfoy like. It was obvious because of the dragonmark, but the proof that in-breeding would create the best children... Not something that would have evolved with standard array. So I am convinced now that you can "roll with the rolls" (and the DM is struggling to balance things with the other players who preferred point buy...)

Absolutely! If you are lucky you can have good stats, high HP, saving throws, thac0 and what else
Me was unlucky so almost all my chr died easily

 

[Maxperson]

Just because there was no requirment to follow it didn't mean that the rules didn't encourage it as the "correct" way to play

The rules are explicitly just guidelines. Did some play that way? Yep. Did others not play that way? Yep. I saw more elves and dwarves not have an issue with each other than I saw have such an issue. Parties tended to be mixed races and if you were roleplaying that way, it was disruptive. And if you didn't roleplay that way with your party, then it didn't make sense to do it with other members of the race outside of your party.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, look at that. You are right. I actually never realized that.

I mean, beyond the meta-rule that the DM can arbitrarily decide anything, the rules do say:


Point Buy, on the other hand, is explicitly left to the DM to approve.

The PHB rules literally tell the player to talk to the DM to see which RAW the DM is using. It's expected that the DM will change rules and that the players should find out from the DM if any given rule is being used. RAW explicitly makes the rules serve the DM, not the other way around.

 

[Scribe]

You know, I think I'll agree with the argument that the current racial ASIs reinforce the purported advantage for humans, that is, that they are versatile: they and half-elves are the only races that can start with a +3 in the primary attribute of any class, or even a +3 in any two attributes (looking at you, monks and paladins).

(Which raises the question of why half-orcs don't get something similar, if it's the human heritage that does the trick.)

Something I've thought on over the last week.

Why didnt they try and be creative with other Races? Humans, Half Elves, and Orc (before the errata of the -2), Mountain Dwarf.

They had this tool, and decided to just do the most lazy thing possible. Why completely hamstring the design space? Just a weird choice to me.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Something I've thought on over the last week.

Why didnt they try and be creative with other Races? Humans, Half Elves, and Orc (before the errata of the -2), Mountain Dwarf.

They had this tool, and decided to just do the most lazy thing possible. Why completely hamstring the design space? Just a weird choice to me.

I don't know if it's the result of laziness or too much focus on simplicity, but I'll agree that there are some areas of 5e that I find not just simple but simplistic.

Probably my least favorite thing about 5e is how the primary attribute is so interchangeable. They may as well just have two attributes and call them Primary Attribute, and Constitution.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I can agree with this, from the perspective that the game encourages these archetypes by saying 'take your 15, then add one of your ASI to it'. This is the reward of specialization which non-humans have.

But humans can get that 16 too. They get a +1 to every single stat. So the non-human reward of specialization is to match humanity?

Because the non-human options are specialized, they are directed into that path as a foil to humanity.

But there is not a single ASI that I can't get a 16 in as a human. So, the specialization of the non-humans is entirely a negative in this context.

Because that is how FR/D&D 'core' if there is such a thing, are set up to be. Eberron has another subverted take on these archetypes as you pointed out, so...go nuts and leave FR alone.

Allowing for other 'against type' options, dilutes the setting, muddies the water, removes definition.

I play my Orc as CN, Barbarian with Path of the Storm Herald. (Close to my WoW Character lol)

Then make up rules for your own table about how FR handles things. I don't care about FR, I care about how the game is presenting the default.

And the bolded? The bolded is the problem. This isn't about us powergaming, it is about you realizing that now combos you don't like are "allowed" and that is going to change the setting, and you dont' like it.

People can play those things. Right now. Pre or Post Tashas.

Funny, if that is true why did you just say this? "Allowing for other 'against type' options, dilutes the setting, muddies the water, removes definition."

If they can already play them then the settings are diluted, the waters are muddied and there is no definition.

Go ahead and fire them up in a game at your table, whats stopping you? Nothing needs to change, literally nothing, with how the game was designed, or especially post Tasha's, so...what do you mean?

What is a Dragonborn Monk that they are keyed in as an archetype? Orc Druid as a Shaman, sure, WoW is a big deal. Gnome cleric?? Lizardman anything?

If these are archetypes to you, whats been stopping you from playing them?

Mostly time, I can't play every character all at once.

But also, until Tasha's it was mechanically punished to play any of those. Now we have Tasha's, but we can't even have a thread were a guy says he likes the changes that were made in Tasha's and agrees that they led to better characters without people flooding in to tell all of us that we are wrong and the end times are coming because of Floating ASIs.

Also, to answer the archetypes.

Dragonborn are big on self-reliance and self-perfection, two elements that play beautifully with the themes of the Monk.

Gnomes have a cool pantheon. Honestly, every race should have a major contingent of clerics, except maybe dragonborn and genasi, just do to how many pantheons and gods there are.

And yeah, Lizardmen. They are a classic idea. Just like goblins, kobolds, and orcs. A Lizardfolk Warlock, either making a deal with the fiendish forces trying to influence their tribe, or fey powers from the swamp, or GOO powers from the swamp, or deep underwater beings. So many cool ideas, and a classic Lizardfolk story in adventure novels is them worshipping a demonic being. Fits perfectly with them being warlocks.

 

[Bill Zebub]

But also, until Tasha's it was mechanically punished to play any of those. Now we have Tasha's, but we can't even have a thread were a guy says he likes the changes that were made in Tasha's and agrees that they led to better characters without people flooding in to tell all of us that we are wrong and the end times are coming because of Floating ASIs.

I will pledge here and now that if floating ASIs do turn out to be the Harbinger of the Apocalypse, before the Internet goes dark and the machines take over I will come back here and admit I was wrong.

 

[Scribe]

But humans can get that 16 too. They get a +1 to every single stat. So the non-human reward of specialization is to match humanity?

But there is not a single ASI that I can't get a 16 in as a human. So, the specialization of the non-humans is entirely a negative in this context.

They cannot get to 17. That is the realm of specialization which only the non-humans can reach.

And the bolded? The bolded is the problem. This isn't about us powergaming, it is about you realizing that now combos you don't like are "allowed" and that is going to change the setting, and you dont' like it.

Funny, if that is true why did you just say this? "Allowing for other 'against type' options, dilutes the setting, muddies the water, removes definition."

No, because they have always been allowed. However to remove the specialization present pre-Tasha's is what dilutes things. When everyone can do it, its no longer special.

This isnt about what you can do, or what you wish to do at your own table. This IS about a view on these races which does then inform the setting, and if I like it or not, FR and 5e are tightly bound.

I dont like Tasha's, but when it was an option, I didnt care as its easily dismissed. That design paradigm becoming the ONLY OPTION moving forward? Thats me losing something that even if they kinda sucked at it, at least it was there in some capacity.

Regardless, its all stuff I house rule now, because as I said months and months ago, this is the path they will take going forward.

Dragonborn are big on self-reliance and self-perfection, two elements that play beautifully with the themes of the Monk.

Gnomes have a cool pantheon. Honestly, every race should have a major contingent of clerics, except maybe dragonborn and genasi, just do to how many pantheons and gods there are.

And yeah, Lizardmen. They are a classic idea. Just like goblins, kobolds, and orcs. A Lizardfolk Warlock, either making a deal with the fiendish forces trying to influence their tribe, or fey powers from the swamp, or GOO powers from the swamp, or deep underwater beings. So many cool ideas, and a classic Lizardfolk story in adventure novels is them worshipping a demonic being. Fits perfectly with them being warlocks.

I'm glad you have found combinations you enjoy. None of that jumps out as 'Dextrous Elf, Hardy Dwarf, Savage Orc, Nimble Halfling' or the like. Perhaps I simply dont engage with the same fiction you do, but just because something can be thematic, doesnt mean its an archetype, to me.

 

[Scribe]

Now we have Tasha's, but we can't even have a thread were a guy says he likes the changes that were made in Tasha's and agrees that they led to better characters without people flooding in to tell all of us that we are wrong and the end times are coming because of Floating ASIs.

Oh, and this is a misrepresentation of my position. I've repeatedly said you can use and enjoy Tasha's. Multiple times in this thread.

 

[Garthanos]

Also, to answer the archetypes.

Dragonborn are big on self-reliance and self-perfection, two elements that play beautifully with the themes of the Monk.

They were great Warlords (Inspirational ones) but you know... 5e has to be something different I suppose.