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

[abirdcall]

Rolled stat is presented as the first way to generate stats for a character.
We can ask too much balance past that point.

A quibble, rolled stats and Standard Array are both the default way to do it.

 

[Krachek]

A quibble, rolled stats and Standard Array are both the default way to do it.

For a game that allow rolled stat, and a game that advice that a gap of two or three levels between PC is acceptable, I can state that fixed or floating ASI is the least balance concern of designers.

 

[abirdcall]

For a game that allow rolled stat, and a game that advice that a gap of two or three levels between PC is acceptable, I can state that fixed or floating ASI is the least balance concern of designers.

I'm not arguing against your central idea.

Just clarifying that standard array isn't a variant. It is a common misconception.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Rolled stat is presented as the first way to generate stats for a character.
We can ask too much balance past that point.

Yeah, this has always bugged me. In my opinion, the game should be balanced as a base (Standard Array/Point Buy, etc), and unbalanced as a variant ruleset (roll for ability scores, different levels for characters at the same table, etc). It's perfectly fine if people want to play in more randomized campaigns (for PCs, at least), but the base game should focus on balance above all else, and then give the options to unbalance it amongst your fellow party members.

 

[Krachek]

I'm not arguing against your central idea.

Just clarifying that standard array isn't a variant. It is a common misconception.

I agree it’s a common misconception, note that following this forum some may easily conclude that point buy is the default!

 

[Maxperson]

If you players roll, and two of them roll a 16 and a 13 is that an issue? You seem to be thinking that just because the numbers are the same, that whether they put it into strength, dex or Cha makes no difference.

In 38 years of playing, I've never once seen two people at the table roll the same 6 numbers for stats.

You said you didn't allow the standard array. Even if a player asked. That is forcing your personal aesthetic preference on another person.

I don't require people to play in my game. If someone opts to, they are accepting my house rules, which include no array. A player who accepts my house rules and then complains about it, that's a pretty large clue that they are a problem player. It violates the social contract.

So, out of sixteen numbers from 3 to 18, in terms of strength you have seen only 5 of them. I'll extend it out two more since you roll, but I think you are getting my point. Everything is a narrow range in DnD, and people tend to not dump the things they say are important to their character.

No. I've seen 7-25(depending on edition and race) for Fighters, but you asked me about low stats, so that's what I answered. I've seen every number down to 3 if you aren't talking exclusively about fighters.

If the potential for two people to share a number doesn't bother you, then why does it bother you that they are all working from the same pool? It isn't unrealistic. Especially if people continue choosing to roll anyways. If one person choose the standard array and the others rolled, then he doesn't share any numbers with anyone.

I've answered that number. You need to get away from this "potential" kick you're on. It has nothing to do with my issue.

And, shockingly, I'm not advocating for identical strength scores. I'm not even advocating that they put the same numbers in the same places, I'm just saying that reaching the same area of basic competency is a thing, and in a game, that can be abstracted into a number.

You say that they must put the highest number(before bonuses) in strength as a fighter, then add the +2 for race in order to be baseline. That's advocating for fighters to be identical in strength at first level.

You are the one declaring that people with no training just naturally know how to effectively use all weapons in all scenarios.

I'm saying that it's a necessary evil to allow. Justify it how you will or not. I have not made a declaration for how anyone does anything, let alone in all scenarios.

Have you ever researched him? Salvatore intended him to be a side character in Wulfgar's story, and then he ended up taking over so Salvatore made him the main character instead.

Poor Salvatore. Drizzt just forced him to make him the hero and took over. Authors never have any control over their characters. :sigh:

Regardless of any possible intent, and I have no desire to research it, Drizzt has never been the side character to anyone.

So, the character who was the first good drow ever to be in print was created in 1988. Then, Greenwood, three years later, added her to the game officially.

The goddes created for the Realms in the 70's, well before Drizzt was a twinkle in Salvatore's eye, yes. She was not put in the Realms for him. She was put in for herself and just added to D&D later when an opportunity showed up.

Why do you think they were okay with a Good aligned Drow Goddess of Rebel Drow, three years after Driz'zt do'Urden became a massive financial and success and spawned literally thousands of copycats? Do you think he might have become iconic, maybe even archetypical, and so she made a great foil and gave people a way to have good aligned drow rebels connected more fully to the story of the drow?

He want AGAINST the drow archetype, which is WHY he was so popular. The rebel is an archetype, though. So he was an archetype, just not a drow archetype.

What envisioned character concept? The concept was "Dwarf Cleric in armor". You are the one wanting to play a charismatic preacher. Maybe they think "hmm, should I" and then they see the other characters and decide that a 10 is enough for them. Maybe they just don't want to play a charismatic preacher and are looking for a more humble character. Maybe they put an 8 in charisma and want to play a brusque, rude and crude priest.

I put forward an character concept that involved charisma. Your response was that maybe he wouldn't pick charisma just because someone else in the party might be better. That would be against that concept, as well as being stupid. You don't dump charisma just because there's a guy in the group who has a high charisma. That guy is not going to be able to do all the talking and your tanked stat will hurt the party in the long run.

Maybe those racial traits are common do to cultural training. That's why elves have weapons, spells, perception and a bunch of other features. Nothing in the text your quoted says that the traits must be a biological reality.

Racial traits are based on the physicality or mental ability of the races in question. The lore makes that clear. But sure, I guess goliaths just learn culturally to be huge and strong.

 

[Maxperson]

It seems like you are responding to somebody, but you forgot to quote them.

They probably have you blocked. You can log out and see what they said. I generally don't do that unless I intend to respond to the person whose post I CAN see and I need to understand the context in order to accurately respond.

 

[Bill Zebub]

That's fair, that would explain why nobody replied to me when I mentioned that.

I might be remembering conversations I've seen on other forms where it has been said to be a balance consideration, which has always felt strange to me.

In particular, with the now errata'd oddities of Kobold and Orcs being the only races / ancestories in 5e to have negative scores. Whatever about Orcs being basically locked out of being Wizards, Kobolds -2 to Strength, while naughty word for Barbarians, doesn't stop them being great in a team with at-least two melee or close-range members and being absolutely ridiculous in any campaign that takes place in areas without a lot of light. Those negatives really didn't balance out the abilities of those two at all, and were clearly a leftover from previous editions.

I admit I am jumping in at points and this has gotten very long and circular. I hope I'm providing some new original thoughts.

As an aside, this thing has inspired me to consider making an all Aarakocra (with a well justified Winged Tiefling Variant campaign) campaign (with Floating ASIs, though players don't have to use them), which does balance the ancestory out by... forcing every PC to be one... and creating a homebrew adventure (and probably fairly homebrew setting) to revolve around flying...

... I promise to ensure there are some land bound melee enemies in that one.

Actually, even though I generally can't stand Aarakocra as a playable race, this makes me think that an all-Aarakocra campaign could be cool. It's the classic "even though our people traditionally stay away from outsiders, our elders have chosen us to venture forth from our hidden village to {address existential threat to the tribe}."

It would be fun to design encounters that both challenge and leverage their flight abilities.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So now you tell me that my lore is not up to date, yet you conceive the point that dwarven wizard never were numerous? Where was I wrong? You keep telling me that and yet you side with me while saying the contrary?????

Again, your specific example "Dwarf in metal armor, with a hammer, casting wall of fire" is supposed to be some massive shock to intelligent enemies. Yet, I just described not only any dwarven wizard, but any dwarven bard, any dwarven sorcerer, a dwarven warlock, a dwarven artillerist and two different dwarven clerics. The only reason it can't be a druid is because I said "metal" armor.

So, seven out of 13 classes, over half of them, could have a dwarf casting wall of fire. Yet these intelligent enemies are going to go "a dwarf?! Using MAGIC!!!" like it is some sort of shock to their system that it is even possible.

So, yeah, if you aren't taking into account just how common magic is in adventuring parties, your lore is out-of-date.

Never have I said that dwarven wizard never existed in any edition. In fact, I forced/tricked you to search so that you would see that they were rare to the extreme. Heck they make magical items since basic may I remind you. I said that dwarven wizard were not a thing that people, monsters, foes would not take for granted as a common or even an uncommon sight.

The same could be said of dwarven rangers, druids, thieves, sorcerers, warlocks, ect ect ect. And many of them would look exactly like a dwarven fighter, who could be an Eldritch knight and still doing magic.


You wanted to "trick me" into seeing that WoTC has rarely published a dwarven wizard? I know that. That doesn't mean that dwarven wizards don't make perfect sense and shouldn't be just as common as any other wizards. It just means WoTC has been failing to keep up with their own rule sets.

And, again, you are just having the monsters meta-game. A dwarven Artificer or a dwarven Forge cleric might appear identical on the surface, they have no way to tell which one they are facing. Humans never have any predispotions, so how are you supposed to have these stereotypes for them? And, following the barbarian question, why is it more shocking to have a halfling barbarian from a race of halfling barbarians that everyone conveniently forgot about, who is just swinging their weapon, compared to a goliath barbarian who is lighting the ground on fire as they run up to smack them?

An elf runs up and hits the monster with a sword that explodes in radiant light. Which class is that monster going to think that elf is a part of? Why would one answer out of the three I can think of be more shocking than the other two? All of this should be terrifying and dangerous, but this is common place when dealing with adventurers in DnD 5e.

We essentially say the exact same thing but with a different perspective. I say this encourages fixed ASI while you claim the contrary.

I don't want the races to mechanically be penalized for stepping outside the stereotypes. I want floating ASIs so that this stuff is more common. And if that means a monster isn't suddenly flabbergasted that magic is something anyone can learn, then I'll live with it.

 

[Helldritch]

Again, your specific example "Dwarf in metal armor, with a hammer, casting wall of fire" is supposed to be some massive shock to intelligent enemies. Yet, I just described not only any dwarven wizard, but any dwarven bard, any dwarven sorcerer, a dwarven warlock, a dwarven artillerist and two different dwarven clerics. The only reason it can't be a druid is because I said "metal" armor.

So, seven out of 13 classes, over half of them, could have a dwarf casting wall of fire. Yet these intelligent enemies are going to go "a dwarf?! Using MAGIC!!!" like it is some sort of shock to their system that it is even possible.

So, yeah, if you aren't taking into account just how common magic is in adventuring parties, your lore is out-of-date.

Far from that. Yours is in the gutter. You realize that except for the dwarven cleric, all the classes you mentioned are not typical dwarven adventurers as they are on the same level of rarity as a dwarven mage? The dwarven adventurer is already rare and among dwarven adventurers these are about the same rarity. They have an equal surprising value in my eyes. A ton of possibility does not make the dwarven adventurer more common and the odd chance that the adventurer chooses a class that is not favored by racial ASI is even rarer.

The same could be said of dwarven rangers, druids, thieves, sorcerers, warlocks, ect ect ect. And many of them would look exactly like a dwarven fighter, who could be an Eldritch knight and still doing magic.

Of these, only the Ranger (strength based) and Eldritch knight would be in accordance with dwarven ASI (more or less).

You wanted to "trick me" into seeing that WoTC has rarely published a dwarven wizard? I know that. That doesn't mean that dwarven wizards don't make perfect sense and shouldn't be just as common as any other wizards. It just means WoTC has been failing to keep up with their own rule sets.

And I see a perfect rule set that is up to date and perfectly valid. You don't like it? Don't use it. Your games your rule. But by RAW with fixed ASI you know that I am right.

And, again, you are just having the monsters meta-game. A dwarven Artificer or a dwarven Forge cleric might appear identical on the surface, they have no way to tell which one they are facing. Humans never have any predispotions, so how are you supposed to have these stereotypes for them? And, following the barbarian question, why is it more shocking to have a halfling barbarian from a race of halfling barbarians that everyone conveniently forgot about, who is just swinging their weapon, compared to a goliath barbarian who is lighting the ground on fire as they run up to smack them?

And here we are again. You use non core books to justify your position where I specifically said that I use only core book. 3 books. That is PHB, DMG and MM. Keep to these and your argumentation falls apart.

An elf runs up and hits the monster with a sword that explodes in radiant light. Which class is that monster going to think that elf is a part of? Why would one answer out of the three I can think of be more shocking than the other two? All of this should be terrifying and dangerous, but this is common place when dealing with adventurers in DnD 5e.

Who cares? Everyone knows that all elves do magicks. I know that. You know that. The trolls know that too and so do the kobolds and goblins. Common knowledge where the monsters or foes when seeing an elf will assume that some magic will be set against them.

I don't want the races to mechanically be penalized for stepping outside the stereotypes. I want floating ASIs so that this stuff is more common. And if that means a monster isn't suddenly flabbergasted that magic is something anyone can learn, then I'll live with it.

And fixed ASI do not penalized anyone. There are no stat penalty for playing a perticular race in 5ed. Are your rule books upto date?
But jokes aside, again, when monsters' reactions are on my side it is metagaming, and when it is on your side it is acceptable? Come on man, RP is RP. You can't justify your position with it and deny me mine.