D&D (2024) First playtest thread! One D&D Character Origins.

[Charlaquin]

If you're saying a fighter moves so fast it is like he is teleporting, that is casting a spell by a different name. It is just simpler solution to give the fighter spells.

I am not saying it is better, just simpler. I actually think there should be less spell casters period. Make wizards the only spell casters and everyone else has magic that isn't spells. That would be the way to do it in my book. Or, the AIME way and get rid of magic and just go mundane.

Eeeehhhhh… I would agree with you, except that spells have such specific flavor in D&D. If a fighter can move so fast that he’s functionally teleporting, I want it to be because he’s moving fast, not because he waved his hands in the right way and said the right words to manipulate The Weave of Magic to move him from one place to another in an instant.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Background ASI do not make sense.
Your training and life choices are already reflected by the standard array and a background doesn't necessarily lead to an ASI. A good for nothing ne'er do well would not build any abilities with his lifestyle and a noble is not automatically charismatic.

Umm….a member of a race that gets +2 Cha is not automatically charismatic, either. (8+2 = 10)

Look, it’s obvious that, for “reasons”, you like fixed racial ASIs. But you keep stating your game design preferences as if they are objectively true, and they’re simply not. Sorry.

 

[Ixal]

I mean, it kind of feels like reaching the human maximum takes both? (I'm not going to be the next Michael Jordan no matter how hard I work, and it feels like Michael Jordan wouldn't have been the MVP material if he went out for the chess team or taken up video gaming full time instead of working out for basketball).

Yes.
And remember, in D&D you are not comparing humans to other humans, but humans to walking alligators. But somehow because both of them have the same background they are supposed to have the same attributes?

 

[Azzy]

I mean, it kind of feels like reaching the human maximum takes both? (I'm not going to be the next Michael Jordan no matter how hard I work, and it feels like Michael Jordan wouldn't have been MVP material if he went out for the chess team or had taken up video gaming full time instead of working out for basketball).

Wouldn't genetics be tour base Ability Scores, then?

 

[Mecheon]

Play Final Fantasy 4, you heathen. It’s the best game in the series (though an argument can be made for FF1).

While I'd normally go in to bat for FF6 or FF9....

Nowerdays, I instead ask have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Play Final Fantasy 4, you heathen. It’s the best game in the series (though an argument can be made for FF1).

FF1 is the only one I actually played. Finished it though.

 

[Charlaquin]

Putting ASI into backgrounds makes no sense. ASI are something you are born with and are genetic. No matter your background you have your ASI the same way you have darkvision or two eyes.

Says who? The ability scores are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. I don’t know about you, but I gained a lot more of all of those things from my life experience than I did from being born.

 

[Ixal]

Umm….a member of a race that gets +2 Cha is not automatically charismatic, either. (8+2 = 10)

Yes, thats exactly what I said in my examples....
Compared to some gifted speaker from a other race the shy introvert from the supposedly charismatic race will pale in comparison.
But among shy introverts he will still be the most charismatic one. Likewise the gifted speaker of a other race will still lose out to a gifted speaker from the charismatic race.
Thats how racial ASI and the attribute array play together.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yes.
And remember, in D&D you are not comparing humans to other humans, but humans to walking alligators. But somehow because both of them have the same background they are supposed to have the same attributes?

Last I checked equivalent ASIs doesn't lead to equivalent attributes.

 

[Cadence]

Eeeehhhhh… I would agree with you, except that spells have such specific flavor in D&D. If a fighter can move so fast that he’s functionally teleporting, I want it to be because he’s moving fast, not because he waves his hands in the right way and said the right words to manipulate The Weave of Magic to move him from one place to another in an instant.

And now I'm picturing Warpsmiths from Miracle Man as a PC race...

"He lept for Aza Chorn, fast as a cheetah; as a mamba; as an ink-black thunderbolt. Yet, when they brag amongst themselves, the cats and snakes and sheets of lightning use one ultimate comparison, albeit sparingly. Fast as a warpsmith."
-Alan Moore, describing Kid Miracleman trying to attack a Warpsmith