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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Helldritch" data-source="post: 8385122" data-attributes="member: 6855114">What a read... Took me a long time to catch up. But here I am.For me and many tables in my area, floating ASI just break the versimilitude of the game. We currently have a mountain dwarf diviner. She took the mountain dwarf race knowing full well that she would not have a 16 in Intelligence. She is now level 6 and she is still at 15 as she took the spell sniper feat. Yes her save DC is less than the human wizard beside her but she is a quite valuable asset. She boosts her companions with spells such as magic weapon, enlarge, haste and quite a few others. She is playing against type but she wanted the dwarven toughness and the ability to wear medium armor. She put a 14 in Dexterity, and a 13 in con (upped to 15) and a 12 in strength (upped to 14). She even went in hand to hand combat with green flame blade. As a diviner, she can use her divining dice to give her an advantage when needed. Yes she plays against type, she does not have a 16 and yet, she pulls a weight with dignity and efficiency. But the best aspect of all this is that she complies to all expectations we have about dwarves! Her "lost" 16 in Intel is a small price to pay to get all she wanted to bring at the table!With floating racial ASI, she would just be an other diviner with a funny bearded face ( yes, this dwarven female proudly bears a magnificent beard!). My player brought her dwarven diviner idea and all the other players were cheering her up. They would not trade her for an other wizard. Just like we have a dual wielding ranger based on strength and not dexterity. No sneaky stuff for him as he wears plate mail. And he is the medic of the group as he took medic as his feat. We are far from the Drizzt's clone we usually see at many tables. A Vhuman Yes, but not a standard one and one that works out quite well.With floating ASI and generic lineage, you will not see these kind of characters as it would be considered gimping a character with a deliberate suboptimal built. Having the choice and being forced to work around a problem is not the same. Optimizing has always been an integral part of gaming (power gaming is its own thing and not something I wish to discuss). If given the choice, a player will always optimize, unless reasons like character concepts and even then, a DM's approval would be required.  With floating ASI, no need to work around. You just do not have to do it. It simply becomes which racial powers suit your character's class concept the most. There are already guides about which raced to with floating ASI are best suited for such and such classes.Historically, rolling stats was the only way, and you only rolled 3d6, not 4d6L. It often led to the what I called "the demi-human crisis". The I want to be an elf, but I do not have a charisma of 8... so I can't be one. Or meeting the minimum constitution for a half-orc or dwarf. You wanted a demi-human but would be stuck with human as your only choice. Over the years, more and more restrictions were removed ( level restrictions, stat maximum and minimum, stat penalties and so on) and demi-humand kept most of their advantages while humans gained nothing to compensate. With floating ASI, demi-humans now gain versatility, which was the last thing humans had going for them. As it is now, just make all humans Vhumans, give them floating +2/+1 and one feat and it is all good.So far, almost all casters we see at tables in which floating ASI are welcomed are either mountain dwarves, hogoblins and tortoise (that one I did not see it coming). Although on paper floating ASI are promoting diversity, in the long runs it appears to do the opposite. And the losers? Martial characters that do not multiclass... Floating ASI are what I call, a false good idea.Edit: Quite a few typoes. Damn phone keyboard and autocorrector set in multiple languages...</blockquote>

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