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

[Crimson Longinus]

My main concern about pointbuy is, so far, it doesnt evaluate whether the ability is primary, secondary, or tertiary.

A high score in the primary is worth way more than in other locations. So, pointbuy gives this one too cheap, with lots of points left over to inflate the rest of the abilities.

Even the secondary ability should add a "tax" when pointbuying its cost.

Yes. But it still better than with ASIs, especially floating ones. Because having an ASI in your primary score makes that score effectively cheaper, which is exactly the opposite of what you want.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I guess I don't understand why you think a primary attribute should cost more than a secondary score, for a given target. Say, 15. What does that accomplish?

A fighter with Str 12, Con 16 or a fighter with Str 16, Con 12. Which is better?

 

[Lyxen]

That's an interesting method to level up. My players like exp a lot, though, so it would be a tough sell.

Just to show how far apart we are in terms of play, we just level when the story require it or it makes sense. We do not count anything, ever.

And sometimes we refrain from levelling for a long time because it makes sense for characters not to acquire powers that could endanger the resolution of the current intrigue. No-one complains.

Or sometimes, we go up one level per session, because we want a blitz to level 20 in an over-epic campaign.

Levelling is even more artificial than most of the game mechanics anyway, and don't reflect anything in particular in terms of training or actual experience of the characters (and even less of the players). And a good story is its own reward for the player (the characters dont need rewards because they are just figments of the player imagination, and even the best roleplay cannot explain something that artificial).

 

[Lyxen]

A fighter with Str 12, Con 16 or a fighter with Str 16, Con 12. Which is better?

Depends what role they have, mostly. If it's a tank, the Con can help a lot.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

And no one is speaking about deliberately bad options either. Just about making some choices for background/story/roleplay reasons rather than for pure power.

OK, I'll bite. My character starting next week (after a long time DM'ing) in a campaign where the pitch "you work in a Cannith enclave. There is no race restriction because outside of the family, you can be business associate." DM actually wants a cohesive group. I chose to play an Artificer (because this is what House Cannith is about, despite (a) Artificer being apparently rated average in optimization guide (b) knowing the DM playstyle, we'll do 1 fight/long rest, so playing a wizard was the obvious optimization choice (c) there already being another artificer in the group. As a race, I chose... Mark of Making human. Despite the stat increase aligning (because it's thematic), a feat would be much more useful than Mending, especially since there is already someone that can cast Mending at will in the party. it's rated "only" green by Treankmonk. I attributed the floating +1 to Charisma (it doesn't serve any purpose except fit the backstory) I even intend NOT to take armorer, despite being a superior subclass, because the flavour of Ironman... doesn't suit me. How does it count?

 

[Bill Zebub]

A fighter with Str 12, Con 16 or a fighter with Str 16, Con 12. Which is better?

The 16 Str one. But why should that cost more than the other one? What is the point of encouraging players to take the worse choice?

 

[Chaosmancer]

In a world where.

Array
Buy
Roll
Racial ASI
Tasha's
Custom Lineage

Are all options, in that world, how can we even pretend 'balance' was or is, a concern?

The world where point buy and the array are equal, the average roll is pretty close to the array, and the Racial ASIs were standardized for the most part.

Tasha's and the Custom Lineage came long after the game was initially released after all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Once you go to floating ASI, it's not the ASI itself that is the center of the optimization(ASI alone is still not powergaming). Yes, giving the monk +2 dex is still optimizing, but to someone who is a powergamer, the focus becomes the racial abilities. Since they can always have the optimal stat bonus, the race with the best other racial abilities that best fit the monk class(or whatever the class in question is), will be the race chosen.

And so what? That has absolutely nothing to do with allowing floating ASIs. They could even gasp not be a powergamer, and not do that.

So, who really cares where the powergamers are focusing their attention?

Yeah. I have a player that was like that. He liked to try to step in and say what the other PCs would do. I kept reminding him that they weren't his characters and the players of those PCs get to tell me what they do. He especially liked to try and do that when a player was doing something that he didn't think was the right move, even when it was good roleplaying. He doesn't do it anymore.

And I'm against those people too. I just don't see a major overlap between that and wanting floating ASIs to play a non-standard combo more easily. A powergamer who doesn't care about RP is already powergaming the optimized combos and not caring about RP, this behavior has nothing to do with the Floating ASI.

This is true. My objection is not because of power. Even if it was more powerful, and it isn't when looking just at the stats, I wouldn't really care. My objection is because of what it does to the racial averages and how races are written up in the lore. For me races should have racial bonuses that correspond to their racial strengths. Dexterous elves and hardy dwarves, etc.

For now I will just be happy we agree this has nothing to do with wanting more power.

Every rule is an optional rule. In my game the only method is rolling. The others are gone. I've also set up the rolling method so that they can play the character they want, though. They get to choose two stats to roll 5d6-2L, two stats at 4d6-L, and two stats at 3d6. Then they can swap any two stats, so if they get really unlucky with the 5d6-2L, then swap that low number with their highest roll if they want. So far it hasn't failed to let the players play the PC that they want to make.

I'm glad the method hasn't failed you and your players are happy. But I do not accept rolling as being the only method of stat generation. I know many people who do not want random stat generation. Maybe they'd give yours a shot, but in the end it doesn't matter.

This is the player character, not the dungeon master character, if they don't want to roll, there should be no reason to make them roll anyways just because you like rolling better.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

My main concern about pointbuy is, so far, it doesnt evaluate whether the ability is primary, secondary, or tertiary.

A high score in the primary is worth way more than in other locations. So, pointbuy gives this one too cheap, with lots of points left over to inflate the rest of the abilities.

Even the secondary ability should add a "tax" when pointbuying its cost.

I do not see any way of determining or enforcing what attributes are Primary, secondary, or Tertiary. Particularly if multiclassing is on the table.

At least with pointbuy, if you choose to not max out one ability, you get a lot more points to spend on getting decent scores in others.

To this end, would you rather see a score of 16 costing more than 12 points?

 

[Bill Zebub]

This is the player character, not the dungeon master character, if they don't want to roll, there should be no reason to make them roll anyways just because you like rolling better.

Especially if the other methods produce results similar to the statistical average of the rolling method.

Not allowing a player to choose just sounds like DM power tripping to me.