Level Up (A5E) Do Player Characters Have Average Population Stat Distributions?

[Phoebasss]

Well, in that case .... I will defer to Rawls Veil of Ignorance.

I understand this is an obvious joke, but the fun thing about the Veil of Ignorance is that, as a thought experiment, its pretty explicitly opposed to racial bonuses. Not super relevant here, but funny nonetheless.

 

[Phoebasss]

Now, a person can say, the racial traits and feats are sufficient to force most players to not play a wizard. Why add the ASIs? Because I view it holistically. They are part and parcel of the differentiation of other races from humans (standard and variant).

So you do want the game to encourage certain race/class combos over others. That at least is a position. Not one I agree with, but a position.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think this only works for game systems with single settings.

Since D&D is a game of multiple settings, encouragement and discouragement should not be on the base game level. That seems more like setting rules.

But you have to have somewhere to start from, and D&D is a fantasy game, drawing inspiration from fantasy literature. Like I said, if you'd prefer your orc wizard get an int bonus instead of strength, read my sidebar and talk to your group. That's what session 0 is for.

 

[TwoSix]

I will add that unlike Twosix, I don't view this as warring camps that will only allow for one victor. I think it would be easy enough to make the default of having the ASIs tied to race, and a paragraph (like the variant human) that says, "By the way, you can untie ASIs from races and have a floating bonus of X."

As I said in another post, I'm fine with that option, it's just a little boring. Hopefully if floating bonuses are the default and tying them to a race is the sidebar, all people will be equally happy.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

As I said in another post, I'm fine with that option, it's just a little boring. Hopefully if floating bonuses are the default and tying them to a race is the sidebar, all people will be equally happy.

Agreed, except that (1) I'd reverse the default and sidebar, and (2) I prefer that everyone be equally happy, except that I would be more equally happy, and people that play bards are miserable.

 

[Phoebasss]

I think a lot of people here are missing examples of races differentiated much beyond their ASIs because they mostly play 5e or 3.5, so I'm gonna provide a partial list of the racial features from 13th age, a game designed by a mix of 3e and 4e designers and which I think is basically an alternative 5e. These are examples of things which could serve to differentiate races without encouraging specific race/class combos. Whether these fit your specific view of the racial tendencies, I think they are far and away more interesting and more flavorful than a simple +2/+1 tied to race. Notably 13th age also made it so every build wants at least 4 ability scores, so the ASI problem doesn't exist there as much anyway. Hopefully you can see why I think these are far superior to ASIs as race differentiators.

Human:
Quick to Fight (Racial Power)
At the start of each battle, roll initiative twice and choose the
result you want.

High Elf:
Highblood Teleport (Racial Power)
Once per battle as a move action, place yourself in a nearby
location you can see.

Dwarf:
That’s Your Best Shot? (Racial Power)
Once per battle as a free action after you have been hit by an
enemy attack, you can heal using a recovery. (Basically you get to use a hit die)

Gnome: (Gnomes get 2!)
Confounding (Racial Power)
Once per battle, when you roll a natural 16+ with an attack, you
can also daze the target until the end of your next turn.
Minor Illusions (Racial Power)
As a standard action, at-will, you can create a strong smell or a
sound nearby. Nearby creatures that fail a normal save notice the
smell or sound. Creatures that make the save may notice it but
recognize it as not exactly real.

Half-Orc:
Lethal (Racial Power)
Once per battle, reroll a melee attack and use the roll you prefer
as the result.

Halfling:
Evasive (Racial Power)
Once per battle, force an enemy that hits you with an attack to
reroll the attack with a –2 penalty.

 

[TwoSix]

Agreed, except that (1) I'd reverse the default and sidebar, and (2) I prefer that everyone be equally happy, except that I would be more equally happy, and people that play bards are miserable.

Better bards than paladins, I always say.

 

[Guest 6801328]

If the assumption in the setting is, for example, that there are very few orc wizards, I don't see any value in making that also hold true among PCs. In fact, the opposite: if it's true that orc wizards are very, very, very rare in (insert setting)...in fact, let's assume there's only one single orc wizard in the entire world...I think it would be great if that one orc wizard is a PC, not an NPC.

We don't need to bias player choice in order to say things about the fantasy world. As DM, I can say that orc wizards are exceedingly rare, regardless of what a player chooses. Heck, the entire party could choose to play orc wizards and they can still be exceedingly rare in my world. (Makes a great overall plot hook for a campaign, really.)

Not that racial ASIs prevent that from happening anyway. But neither do they prevent me, the DM, from saying that orc wizards are rare.

Heck, even with current game rules I can declare by fiat that halfling rogues are non-existent, unless a player chooses to play one. Right? Thus racial ASIs, either their presence or absence, have zero relevance to the setting itself, unless the DM wants them to.

Q.E.F.D., baby.

 

[Haldrik]

I don't think it's a matter of "ok" or not, which sounds like a value judgment. It's more that the thinking about RPG design has evolved, and there's an increasing recognition that whatever the logic was for giving some race/class combinations more synergy than others, maybe it doesn't actually contribute anything to the games. Maybe it's just tradition for tradition's sake. Maybe it's enough for all those NPCs to reflect cultural tendencies, and there's no need to push the tiny handful of PCs in the same direction.

I am someone who liked race-class synergy ... because I liked how the resulting cluster of favorable classes informed the flavor of the race. For example, if an eladrin was mechanically good at being a wizard and a bard, and a wood elf mechanically good at being a druid and a ranger, that distinction between magical preferences seems interesting.

Designwise, I value when "flavor" actually happens mechanically during gameplay. The coherence between flavor and mechanics is a priority.

One of my frustrations with 1e was a "flavor" that the elf was good at being a wizard, but mechanically the elf in fact sucked. It made the "flavor" feel ridiculous, and even pathetic in the sense that I felt sorry for the players who were "pretending" the elf was a good wizard when such was untrue. If the character has the flavor of being able to fly, there had better be mechanical wings, before jumping off of a cliff.

Similarly, I feel frustration with 5e claiming the elf is good at wizard (in fact, the 5e elf is mediocre and the cantrip less significant for an actual wizard), and also with 5e claiming the elf is good at art and poetry (in fact, the 5e elf is inferior at Charisma and is a poor choice for bard or performance or persuasion or poetry or art).

Anyway, when factual, the synergy between race and class was one way to actualize a flavor mechanically.



Now, however, I feel increasing discomfort with the "racism" of the D&D races. The discomfort surpasses the enjoyment.



I am optimistic about giving each heritage a feat, and moving the ability improvements to backgrounds.

4e had an interesting feat for each race, such as Misty Step for eladrin. It made the choice of race fun and meaningful during gameplay. 5e removed this feat from the races, and I miss this aspect of 4e.

Ideally, Advanced 5e can offer each heritage a choice from several feats to help shore up the flavors of the heritage mechanically.

 

[Phoebasss]

Better bards than paladins, I always say.

Bunch of lawful good dorks. I'm just trying to swipe a few extra gold from the local robber baron, leave me alone.