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

[Chaosmancer]

Because it's never only about the stat only, it's about the combination of race (and its racial powers), class and stats. And again, I need no more proof that all the guides out there who explain to you how certain combinations are technically more powerful than others, all colour coded and who explain that some combination were powerful when there were Racial ASIs, but how new ones have become even more powerful if the optional Floating ASIs are allowed.

And because there are now even more combinations, it's even harder for casual players to have a look at everything (assuming that they want to) it will widen the power gap even more between casual players and powergamers, something that we don't want at our tables.

I have given many examples of the negative effects of the power gap, and there is absolutely zero reason to increase that power gap (and again, the guides clearly demonstrate that the potential power gap has increased if you allow Floating ASIs).

Come on, it's not that hard to understand. Despite all the best intentions displayed by some members of this board that they will only use the floating ASIs to play the previously powerful combinations and not seek more power, no one has yet presented a character that has been created and played that way. It's not going to happen, if you dangle candy in front of a child, he will take it, just as any optimiser/powergamer will take another advantage if you dangle it in front of their eyes.

So, it is highly likely that nothing I could ever say will sway you, but I want to try anyways. Right in that first sentence you revealed that it has nothing to do with what people do, it is about what you fear people will do. After all I have all the proof I need to disprove your theory.

You read the guides.

You obviously wouldn't say you are a powergamer, and yet you read those guides. So it is possible to go as far as reading the guides, and yet still not be a powergamer. Therefore, the mere existence of the guides proves nothing about people's intentions.


You want an example of a Tasha's character who isn't powergaming? Sure, I actually have one. I have a Levistus Tiefling Artificer. Due to my rolls (the DM had us roll two arrays and take the higher of the two or the standard array) they have an 17 intelligence. The DM did have us take a feat at first level, I took Tiefling Constituiton to add in cold resistance (makes sense being tied to the icy hell of Stygia) and Poison Resistance. As an artificer, that allows me to work in hot, cold and poisonous environments far more safely, and I thought was fairly appropriate for an industrial character.

So, other than the feat that the DM told me to take... where' the powergaming? What did I do to PROVE that I am nothing but a powergamer who only cares about the best things and being more powerful than my companions (an impossible task, BTW)

 

[Maxperson]

Room for it, yes. But they obviously encouraged the class/race combos actively, and in such a way to make it mechanically worse to go against them. That is a clear incentive.

Okay, but so what. Lack of encouragement does not equate to discouragement. A negative to a stat is discouragement.

People using magic in armor isn't against type though. Even in 3.5 when arcane spell failure was a big thing... they still had classes that used armor and used arcane magic, with rules to counter-act those rules and allow that type.

Such use was a special ability of the class/prestige class. Or else they suffered the penalty as some of my wizards did.

Only by putting their prime as their third highest stat. You know this, I've said it and proven it.

No you didn't. You showed that the highest stat is recommended to be in the prime stat for the class. You did not show that the highest number should be placed there. What I showed matched their suggestion. The highest stat(15) was in fact in the prime spot.

No player I have ever helped build a character, when given a 15, 14, and 13 and told "okay, now put your highest in dex" picked the 13 because then after the +2 it was tied with their 15 and therefore the highest.

I've done it and seen others do it. It's not nearly as common, but it does happen and it fits the baseline of the game.

And the fact that your first instinct is to declare your superiority is telling.

You said it wasn't easy for you. I've done it with multiple DMs and it is easy for me.

Clerics aren't in type for mountain dwarves, because literature and most games don't have mountain dwarves. It is for dwarves, and hill dwarves can. Therefore, dwarves can.

Clerics are in type for ALL dwarves. And you're going to need to show hard evidence that most games don't have mountain dwarves, because outside of Athas I haven't seen one.

Biology is Biology. Just as Calculus is Calculus.

Any alien coming to earth is going to match human biology. Got it. There can't be any differences because you said so.

There is something wrong when the "discussion" is focused on how the game will be ruined, the apocalypse has come and it is only a matter of time. This isn't a reasoned debate, it is fearmongering.

Good thing nobody has been arguing that. They have said that it's only a matter of time until Tasha's becomes the default for D&D, but nobody has said it's a matter of time until the game is ruined and/or the apocalypse will come.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I hear you Chaos. I am not accusing or throwing around the word powergamer. There are some that min/max, and that's cool. I have no problem with it. I apologize if my question came off as rude. It was not my intent. I just wanted clarification on the penalized portion of your statement. For example, you feel players are penalized for not playing the optimized (+1) race/class combo. So people might feel penalized for playing, let's just say, a halfling fighter. That was the part I wanted to hear more about.

Thanks for being patient with me. It is appreciated.

Nah, your question was fine. I was just boiling over a bit about the accusations from other posters.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Most classes can pick a stronger race to combo with using tashas than without

Who? I've asked many times and received no true answers. The most common one people refer to is Mountain Dwarf, which is no stronger than the Githyanki. So, what are these stronger race combos?

 

[LadyElect]

The stat you use to attack/cast.

I think I'd oppose that extra cost step then I think, but perhaps that comes down to table style (frequency of combat encounters, # of ways to resolve otherwise, etc).

 

[ReshiIRE]

Because it is better? Isn't it obvious?


It encourages more diverse builds. And if you can buy a lot of other stat with those points saved by not maxing the primary it is not weaker.

Consider these warlocks:
Str 10 Dex 12 Con 12 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 16
Str 10 Dex 16 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 14

A bit less obvious that the one with higher primary is better now, isn't it?

It's not, depending on the Warlock, party size and your defensive cabilities vs certain enemies.

A Warlock is gonna get hit at some point. Having two less AC (the same amount as a shield), plus less chance to survive on a common saving throw, plus less iniuative (which is sometimes important) and having less HP* really makes a difference to survivability. You can play more glass canon, but the 5% difference until late game won't matter as much as the combined 20% difference in scores for Dex and Con.

What you are suggesting may encourage more diverse builds initially, but I suspect that would not last super long. It also creates a problem for some classes in designating a 'primary' stat. Consider Fighters. Do you make both Strength and Dexterity primary stats? If so, I think you make it so that Fighters end up in this weird position where they're going either going to have to end up weirdly splitting their Strength and Dexterity modifiers and ending up as adaptable but further hamstringed in effectiveness compared to spell-casters, or end up with a lot of +1s for skills that they may easily get outshined in, or that they'll be quite clever and pick up Eldritch Knight, which I feel is the subclass that worsk the best here.

I don't think your idea quite shakes out without significantly more changes to ability scores.

* At level 3, the second Warlock has a level up's worth of more HP than the first one (assuming the average and without HP roles). At low levels especially that could make a significant difference.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Because it is better? Isn't it obvious?


It encourages more diverse builds. And if you can buy a lot of other stat with those points saved by not maxing the primary it is not weaker.

Consider these warlocks:
Str 10 Dex 12 Con 12 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 16
Str 10 Dex 16 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 14

A bit less obvious that the one with higher primary is better now, isn't it?

I guess I don’t think that encouraging players to play a warlock with rogue stats is a worthwhile goal. It would just drive dip multi-classing: start with your 1 level dip, then when you switch to your main class you’ll have awesome stats.

The point buy system maybe needs some tweaks, but in general a system in which attributes get progressively more expensive solves the design goal. Or what I think the design goal should be.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That is the character that I'm asking for. But I'm telling you that my feeling is that, even with Tasha, that character will not exist because it is still less optimal than a drow half-elf, kobold, etc.

I just want to see that people are using Floating ASIs to play race/class combinations that are truly unusual (because they really want to test that combination), not the ones that the guides say are now the strongest.

You realize that some of us just play the characters we want, and don't read the guides for our character ideas at all.

If you want a list of characters I made without consulting a guide to tell me what to make... I can just start listing all of them. At worst, I check a guide when I have a hard decision on a spell choice or feat choice, to see if there is anything I'm not considering, but you seem to have this idea that there are only two types of people in the world, and one of them slavishly follows a guide with no concern for their own preferences. That isn't true.

 

[Maxperson]

I guess I don’t think that encouraging players to play a warlock with rogue stats is a worthwhile goal. It would just drive dip multi-classing: start with your 1 level dip, then when you switch to your main class you’ll have awesome stats.

The increased survivability is far better than the increased damage and I don't agree that it would drive up multiclassing. I see very little multiclassing even with rolled stats, which makes multiclassing very easy.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's not, depending on the Warlock, party size and your defensive cabilities vs certain enemies.

A Warlock is gonna get hit at some point. Having two less AC (the same amount as a shield), plus less chance to survive on a common saving throw, plus less iniuative (which is sometimes important) and having less HP* really makes a difference to survivability. You can play more glass canon, but the 5% difference until late game won't matter as much as the combined 20% difference in scores for Dex and Con.

Right. So now you think the one with lower primary is just worse. Fair enough, I made the difference intentionally very stark to prove a point. It could for example be:
Str 10 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 16
Str 10 Dex 16 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 14

Or something else. The exact ratio isn't really the point. The point is that you need to get more of other stats for a point of primary stat before not maxing it becomes an actually something worth considering from optimisation perspective.

What you are suggesting may encourage more diverse builds initially, but I suspect that would not last super long. It also creates a problem for some classes in designating a 'primary' stat. Consider Fighters. Do you make both Strength and Dexterity primary stats? If so, I think you make it so that Fighters end up in this weird position where they're going either going to have to end up weirdly splitting their Strength and Dexterity modifiers and ending up as adaptable but further hamstringed in effectiveness compared to spell-casters, or end up with a lot of +1s for skills that they may easily get outshined in, or that they'll be quite clever and pick up Eldritch Knight, which I feel is the subclass that worsk the best here.

Yeah, classes that can run on two different scores make this tricky. The primary probably should be whichever is higher (or either, if they're the same, and then it doesn't really even matter, which it was, just the total cost.)

I don't think your idea quite shakes out without significantly more changes to ability scores.

Quite possible. But I am really tired of "everyone must max their primary, that's the only way" and trying to brainstorm what it would actually take to incentivise more varied builds. It is not easy.