D&D 5E D&D Q&A 12/13: Racial Ability Scores, Cleric Options & Monsters

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Not exactly, in my view. 4e also had no racial penalties and humans simply had freedom of choice where to put their ability score bonus. Giving humans +1 to everything in 5e is (IMO) due more to the fact that humans don't get any other racial benefits. In 4e, for example, humans had an extra feat, training in an extra skill, bonuses to defenses, and a racial power or an extra at-will power.

I agree, and I think they need to find a better way to boost 5e humans. An extra trained skill and/or feat might not be bad.

 

[gyor]

I'm happy with carrot over stick, Variety in Clerics and Optional DIYS Deities. Humans could be more interesting, but the ability score bonuses are an okay place holder till they have a chance to expand on races.

 

[MoonSong]

I'm happy with carrot over stick, Variety in Clerics and Optional DIYS Deities. Humans could be more interesting, but the ability score bonuses are an okay place holder till they have a chance to expand on races.

I find it weird to epople speaking of racial penalties as the stick, to me they always made sense and I find them an useful tool to get the character scores to be right as I want them, racial penalties are the only way I can ever play anything with a score lower than an 8 in typical point buy. To me they were never a punishment but rather a welcomed quirk that was deeply missed in 4e, and I find it sad that they'll be absent in Next.

 

[Blue]

The last several updates about Next all seem to be "play my way". If I want to play a "white mage" I'm locked out of certain deities, and if I want to play a martial cleric I'm locked out of others? If as a DM I want original or non-traditional deities, that may not be supported by the cleric creation rules? I think they did things better with the wizard, where you could chose what type of wizard you wanted to be and it didn't lock you out. "Sorry, you want to play an elf, you're not allowed to be this type of wizard."

I was disappointed about the alignment one as well - (Protection from/Smite/etc) Evil only works vs. undead and fiends harks back to 3.x ranger favored enemies. Depending on the campaign there might be plenty of evil, but little fiends or undead. Just make it "Big Evil" and have the DM specify what that means for their campaign to properly balance it.

 

[Sunseeker]

I generally prefer carrot to stick, but in my experience my ideal set of stats is the way Pathfinder does it. +2 physical, +2 mental, -2 something racially specific.
I did like the flexible stats introduced later in 4.5e(Essentials), allowing for some flexibility in representing each race. Perhaps some Dwarves are stronger than they are stout, some elves smarter than they are wise, etc... So, if I really had to take my pick I'd like the following: +2 fixed mental/physical racial-based. -2 fixed mental/physical racial-based. +2 floating either mental or physical, whatever the fixed one isn't.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Oh, I totally agree that it would be a return to CoDzilla, and bad design for the game. The trouble is, that's what ought to be the case. How to make clerics 'realistic' while still being good game design is the trick, but D&D will never even try, because that's the way D&D clerics just are.

Edit: Sorry Shidaku, I ment to hit Reply With Quotes. Still getting used to the new format.

 

[Sunseeker]

Oh, I totally agree that it would be a return to CoDzilla, and bad design for the game. The trouble is, that's what ought to be the case. How to make clerics 'realistic' while still being good game design is the trick, but D&D will never even try, because that's the way D&D clerics just are.

Edit: Sorry Shidaku, I ment to hit Reply With Quotes. Still getting used to the new format.

No, believing in a "magic god" really shouldn't give you access to super-awesome magic in excess of people who study it, or hell even have it come naturally. The divine generally have to work harder to get the same.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I think with the current design, specifically the attribute bonuses given by both race and class, there is scope for penalties. If you get a -1 to the primary attribute for a particular class, such as a charisma penalty for dwarves that would discourage them from playing paladins, then you can offset it with the attribute bonus given by the class itself. The difference in 3E between an 'optimised' race-class combination (ie: half orc fighter) and a 'pessimised' race-class combination (ie: dwarf paladin) was 4 attribute points, which was a +2 difference on checks and such. Now sometimes this doesn't matter that much, it depends how critical your primary attribute is, and in 4E, where it mattered *a lot*, the difference between best and worst case race-class combinations was reduced to 2 attribute points, or +1 on checks and such. 5E has the same range as 4E available at the moment, you can get a stat to 16 or 17 (discounting humans) or leave it at 15, and if you now throw in a penalty, you'll have 14 at worst, or 15 if you want to compensate for that penalty. Now if we look at humans, with their +1 to everything, we actually *do* have a penalty in play, for every other race, of -1 on every ability. Humans can attain an 18 with optimisation, and a 16 without. Any other race only has the range 15-17. Humans suck.

Personally, I'd like to go back to a time when more than just 1-2 attributes matter to you. As a dwarf paladin you'll maybe have a lesser charisma than your human friend (if we change them), but you're tougher, and just as good at hitting things in combat. It should be acceptable to have an attack bonus 1 less than another character, especially in bounded accuracy, in exchange for usefulness in other ways. We need to move away from multiple dump stats per class - don't make dexterity useless if you're going to be heavily armoured, don't penalise martial characters for having intelligence, don't make a single stat responsible for all your attacks, checks, in some cases your AC, and so on.

 

[delericho]

As soon as the game moved away from "roll in order", ability score bonuses and penalties became redundant. Point buy makes it even more obvious. If you want your half-orc to be strong then... just assign a high Strength.

 

[Klaus]

My biggest qualm about the races so far is with the humans. +2 to one score and +1 to every other score sounds not only boring, but also means that a human that is as agile as an elf (or as resilient as a dwarf, or as strong as a half-orc) will be stronger, more resilient, wiser, smarter and more charismatic.

The root of the humans' problem is that DDN is trying to mimic the 3e human stats. I'd rather bite the bullet and give the humans special traits that focus on versatility, ingenuity and improvisation (fail a check/save, try it again with a bonus).