D&D (2024) Elves without racism [+]

[Scribe]

No they don't. Simply tweaking the stats makes for tiny differences. If you want actual significant differences you need things like Darkvision (although that's overused), Powerful Build, Claws, Telepathy, and more. If the entire difference can be concealed behind a string of lucky or unlucky d20 rolls then it isn't a meaningful difference, just tedious book keeping that doesn't actually produce significant differences.

As per usual.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As per usual.

Why don't we have something with the good points and something that makes orc wizards and elf fighters feel unpleasant to play for many?

 

[Scribe]

Why don't we have something with the good points and something that makes orc wizards and elf fighters feel unpleasant to play for many?

Its a question of expectation, not that its worth the debate really because the battle for this is long lost. We got 'more bland, less different', and thats the way its going to stay with the 'evergreen' edition.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Its a question of expectation, not that its worth the debate really because the battle for this is long lost. We got 'more bland, less different', and thats the way its going to stay with the 'evergreen' edition.

Except we didn't. If I'm looking for bland I look at 3.X with the plethora of +2 to skills passing themselves off as differences.

We got (as so often with 5e) 70% of the largest effect for 30% of the effort.

 

[Scribe]

Except we didn't. If I'm looking for bland I look at 3.X with the plethora of +2 to skills passing themselves off as differences.

We got (as so often with 5e) 70% of the largest effect for 30% of the effort.

I mean we could look at some of the options in 3e, with quite a bit of variation, or we could even just look at 5e on release, compared to 5e floating, compared to MotM.

For my dollar? We lost differences, and yes its more bland.

The majority of options are not actually interesting or novel like Eladrin. They are dull as dirt High Elf, or Tiefling, but 'improved' with floating ASI, especially the PHB.

 

[Horwath]

I mean we could look at some of the options in 3e, with quite a bit of variation, or we could even just look at 5e on release, compared to 5e floating, compared to MotM.

For my dollar? We lost differences, and yes its more bland.

The majority of options are not actually interesting or novel like Eladrin. They are dull as dirt High Elf, or Tiefling, but 'improved' with floating ASI, especially the PHB.

with floating ASIs we actually got variety in character creation,

before Tasha, when a player made bard, paladin, sorcerer or warlock, it was 80% half-elf.
There is no better combo to be made. And by far.

 

[Scribe]

with floating ASIs we actually got variety in character creation,

before Tasha, when a player made bard, paladin, sorcerer or warlock, it was 80% half-elf.
There is no better combo to be made. And by far.

Min max play is a thing, yep.

 

[Horwath]

Min max play is a thing, yep.

it is, as +2 really trumps everything.

That is why this whole feats=ASIs is worst thing in 5E.
It's a choice between mechanical advantage and getting a new cool ability.
You should get both.

Having ALL feats come with floating +1 ASI is a good compromise.
in addition if ASI is limited to +1/+1 instead of +2 to single ability.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

By itself a simple +2 can't define a species. Same as just one minor ability like skill/weapon prof or a language doesn't define one.

But over time, one by one, each of these is being removed or moved elsewhere, and over time this does start eroding the differences between species when nothing is brought in to replace them.

So every defining feature is deleted one by one, each of those features isn't very defining alone. But then once half of them are gone, many of the species start to look homogenous. And then people start pushing to merge or delete those species.

And yeah, languages and tool profs probably should be under background and not species. And the way 5e is set up makes a +2 or -2 build defining to the point it's basically needed for a working build. So I'm happy for those to go.

But they should have been replaced with things. More actual written abilities and features which actually change how the species play a lot more than the current species traits.

Otherwise, over time when more and more features are stripped away and moved elsewhere, those asking for species to be purely cosmetic will gain traction, and then it will happen.

 

[Horwath]

one solution to keep racial +2/+1 fixed is to give class bonuses of +2/+1 and that the total cannot stack over +2.
I.E. fighter could get +2/+1 to spend on str, dex or con, cleric would be str, con or wis, rogue dex, int or cha, ranger str, dex or wis, etc...