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

[abirdcall]

What would be just funny if it was not so sad and annoying at some level would be if people realised this and coupled the fact that they want to powergame and allow incredible scores (usually through rolled stats) with their complaints about the encounter computation system not working.



Indeed, because as a DM I aim to please my players. But for that, I need them to express what they really want in the game. If they dissemble and hide the fact that they want to powerplay, it's just going to be more difficult to please them. I have no problem running a powergame at all, and lots of experience doing so, and D&D is a high fantasy game for heroes anyway.

But the fact is that the game does not need incredible scores to do this either, for once, and the other difficulty is running a game for players looking for various things. It's easy, during the course of one game, to speed up roleplaying a bit and launch some action for people who want this as well, but the problem is it's much harder, once characters have been defined, to change them and balance them so that everyone can have their turn in the spotlight where technical gaming matters.

Of course, as a DM, it's theoretically not that difficult to steer power things through rulings or even magical items during the course of the campaign. But when you do this, the powergamers who optimised their characters at the start are still going to complain about favoritism (when all you are doing is making sure that everyone around the table has fun). So the only way is to minimise the discrepancies at start and make sure that they don't accumulate through the levels.

Finally, and we had a hint of this a few posts ago, there is still the problem that people who powergame think that they are better D&D players because they think they understand how to make a more powerful character, which is absolutely not true, especially when in fact all they know is how to parrot computations that they have seen somewhere else...

D&D is not a competitive game and so people cannot show which strategies are actually better than others. Powergamers on the internet have their ideas of it but are often off the mark.

I have played some competitive games at high levels. One interesting thing about playing against worse players is that they are often convinced that their strategies are best even when they lose over and over.

In D&D strategy discussions break down because the game isn't competitive. They read things on the internet and they are often not even true.

 

[Bill Zebub]

We covered it a few dozen pages ago.

1. Popular media says and shows Elves have super natural grace. (Legolas)
2. PHB describes Elves as graceful.
3. Dexterity is understood to be the grace as agility stat.
4. Elves get a bonus to Dexterity, because we know they are a graceful species.

Therefore, the archetype in social consciousness exists, is supported by the lore and World building, as well as being reinforced mechanically, to provide a more cohesive view.

Yes, I understand the logic behind that train of thought. But that doesn't explain to me why it is needed to support roleplaying during character creation.

In other words, I can see how if the rules gave halflings a +2 Str then newcomers to the game would say, "Wait...what? That's not what I was picturing with halflings! I just read a page of text and they sound like hobbits!"

But how does the absence of any predefined ASI cause that reaction?

 

[Umbran]

If you say, "did not actively discourage," you are saying that they passively discouraged. If you had really meant that they did not discourage, the word "active" would not have been present. You would have just said, "they did not discourage." Words mean things.

Words do mean things. But, in fact, they don't mean what you say here. There's a place in there for "neither encouraged nor discouraged" that you are discarding out of hand.

In general, please try harder to not tell people what they mean, or intended to say, if you want to have a constructive conversation, because, simply put, you can be wrong, and it causes problems when folks have to disabuse you of your own mistaken assumptions.

 

[Scribe]

But how does the absence of any predefined ASI cause that reaction?

I'm not sure if I understand.

Bob picks Elf. Puts his +2 in dex.
Joe picks Dwarf. Puts his +2 in dex.

Disconnect.

If there was no ASI, then the lore is just meaningless fluff, it translates to nothing in game, and so the whole picture (lore, archetype, mechanics) is lesser.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Yes, I understand the logic behind that train of thought. But that doesn't explain to me why it is needed to support roleplaying during character creation.

In other words, I can see how if the rules gave halflings a +2 Str then newcomers to the game would say, "Wait...what? That's not what I was picturing with halflings! I just read a page of text and they sound like hobbits!"

But how does the absence of any predefined ASI cause that reaction?

Because when you read "Elves are dextrous" and "Orcs are strong" in the fluff in a game where there is a DEX and a STR stat you immediately associate with these adjectives, you don't expect the outcome to be identical. I can see the absence of a mechanical element pass easily if there wasn't a very clearly linked mechanical gizmo in the game. if dwarves weren't Small, it would be jarring to describe them as small... unless there was no mechanical size category. Likewise, halflings are hairy... but nobody is surprised of the absence of mechanical reflection because there is no hairyness stat.

 

[Bill Zebub]

To answer my own question, I suppose it's possible some people might say, "I can even put my +2 in Strength? How much of a bonus can Dwarves put there? Wait...so halflings can be as strong as dwarves? That's strange."

However:
- The game is FULL of strange, counter-intuitive things (including that halfings can be just as strong as Dwarves, it just takes a few extra levels)
- I personally doubt that a single rule with some odd edge-case implications is going to negate or even meaningfully mitigate all the other information that reinforces the archetypes.

I respect that some people really think racial ASIs add necessary flavor (I personally think that rapiers subtract flavor from D&D; we each have our own preferences), I just don't believe their absence would have the particular effect described.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In other words, I can see how if the rules gave halflings a +2 Str then newcomers to the game would say, "Wait...what? That's not what I was picturing with halflings! I just read a page of text and they sound like hobbits!"

Yes.

But how does the absence of any predefined ASI cause that reaction?

It's the same thing than in your previous paragraph, just a tad less extreme version of it. "Wait what, why these seven feet tall half-orcs aren't any stronger than these three feet tall hobbits?" It is disconnect between what is shown and told in the fiction and the mechanics. Some people find this jarring and it lessens their ability to connect with the game.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'm not sure if I understand.

Bob picks Elf. Puts his +2 in dex.
Joe picks Dwarf. Puts his +2 in dex.

Disconnect.

If there was no ASI, then the lore is just meaningless fluff, it translates to nothing in game, and so the whole picture (lore, archetype, mechanics) is lesser.

I guess I just don't see why that would be a disconnect for somebody who doesn't already have predetermined opinions about racial ASIs.

Is it a disconnect (with racial ASIs) if Bob puts a 13 in Dex and Joe puts a 15 in Dex, and they both end up with the same score? I suppose I can guess your answer, but I personally don't see why it's different (again, assuming it's a player who doesn't already have strong opinions about this).

 

[Maxperson]

To answer my own question, I suppose it's possible some people might say, "I can even put my +2 in Strength? How much of a bonus can Dwarves put there? Wait...so halflings can be as strong as dwarves? That's strange."

However:
- The game is FULL of strange, counter-intuitive things (including that halfings can be just as strong as Dwarves, it just takes a few extra levels)
- I personally doubt that a single rule with some odd edge-case implications is going to negate or even meaningfully mitigate all the other information that reinforces the archetypes.

Yep. That's created by the hard cap on stats. Without that, assuming both mountain dwarves and halflings put their ASIs into strength, the halfling could never catch the dwarf without magic or boons or something.

That's why I'm raising the cap to 20+racial bonus. That mountain dwarf will have a strength and constitution cap of 22, while the halfling will top out at 20.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I guess I need clarification: does "necessary for roleplaying during character creation" mean:

A) "It is necessary for me; it just doesn't feel right otherwise."
B) "It is necessary for other/new players, who otherwise might not have the correct image in mind."

If it's A then, ok, I get it and we're cool. (This is what I thought we resolved many pages ago.)

If it's B...then I strongly disagree. (This is what I've been pushing back against these last few posts.)