D&D General How do you like your ASIs?

[Vaalingrade]

This is what got me banned, within seconds:

vince_snetteton: This guy just butchered Haste. He has the mechanics all wrong. Read the spell. You can only do specific things with the spell, and he had already cast Misty Step, which is a Bonus Action. The DM has to know the rules, as well as this guy./
vince_snetteton: You guys can play D&D, or you can pretend you are in a Critical Role production. You can't do both. You are clearly not playing D&D.

I am not sure what this anecdote about you being banned for being rude to the presenters was meant to convey.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So in your game how do I model a scrawny orc wizard? You would say even a scrawny orc wizard has a 10STR. Then how do you model a scrawny orc wizard with a weakening curse placed on their family? Also a 10STR or maybe you just give someone the option of not using their STR bonus so they can start with an 8.

But then you have opened the door to there being a single orc in the world with an 8STR so we wrap back around to asking why they can't just build them with the 8STR and put the +2 somewhere else so their character can be balanced with the rest of the array using party?

Yeah, my firsts answer indeed is that they have strength 10. And that's pathetic for an orc. Other orcs might mock them, saying that they're "as weak as a human" or something like that.

And sure, you could invent some weakening curse or something like that. So if I was playing a halfling in your game, could I invent such a curse to drop my strength to four, and gain more point buy points from it so I can minmax my other stats?

I understand the idea for supporting world building by having orc always strong and elves always dexterous but I will never understand how you can't allow the few PCs that exist in the world to follow ever so slightly different rules to account for their spotlight.

Maybe this just boils down to how a table views it's PCs. I view mine as if they were the main characters if a book. I expect them to be movers and shakers (that's what the adventures are) and be exceptional in many ways. Even from level 1.

I mean I see PCs as people with heroic potential. Gifted noobs. But not as super special chosen ones. There are many such gifted people in the world, some eventually become legendary heroes, some die in a ditch.

I do not view them as Orc#3728266 fresh off the assembly line so therefore you must be a carbon copy of all the other orcs. Those orcs are in the stat block of the monster manual. They all have the same 6 stats, the same skills and equipment and go by a number.

THe PC orc wizard can be whatever they want.

Ultimately you of course can always come up with fictional justification for anything. Curse, blessing, bit by a radioactive owlbear, you name it. I just don't think such an approach where the PCs are expected to be unique superheroes is compatible with a splat based game design. Perhaps my halfling was blessed by an angel to have wings, perhaps my trasmutation wizard has uncovered secret art of fleshmending and thus can cast all healing spells etc. Simply put, if I play a splat based game, I want the splats to define things and actually tell us something about the reality of the setting. If I want unique heroes not bound by such limitations I play a game that is actually designed to build characters from scratch and where I can freely mix and match anything.

 

[Bill Zebub]

So, honest question: What about the player that wants to combine different mechanical choices with different narrative choices that are not allowed by the game - because there is supposed to be a trade-off?

Great question, and thanks for engaging and not just arguing.

So, for example, what if a player wants to be an Elf with Stonecunning instead of Keen Senses, or a Halfling with Relentless Endurance instead of Lucky?

I see two differences between those and the ASI question:

1) In my opinion, those racial abilities have distinctive racial connotations. +2 Dex is a specific mechanical benefit of Elves, but it's not uniquely flavorful (to me). Not only do several races get an identical benefit, but all races have a Dexterity score, and all of them can get a 16 Dex by 4th level if they so choose. So, no, a 16 Dexterity just doesn't evoke Elvishness (again, to me; YMMV)

2) But more importantly...and less subjectively...the mechanical value of +2 in your primary stat puts too heavy of a finger on the scale in terms of race:class synergy. If you're weighing Halfling Luck vs. Relentless Endurance you can rationalize as better whichever you really prefer. And, yeah, you might just have to decide whether you really want a Halfling, or if you really want Relentless Endurance. Either way, both are quite useful for rogues. But if you're making a Rogue and weighing +2 Dex vs. +2 Strength there's not really any question.

Now, if we noticed over time that we were seeing an improbable number of half-orc rogues (after the initial surge caused by the novelty of it) we might need to reassess how powerful Relentless Endurance is.

So I think it comes down to a kind of cost/benefit analysis: how much flavor are you getting (in terms of abilities that are reserved for certain races), at what kind of cost (measured as the incentive to choose particular race:class combinations). And in my analysis (and apparently WotC's) fixed ASIs provide less flavor than abilities, but create a high incentive to choose specific race:class combinations.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Ultimately I would really want to see a discussion about how the game should be structured so that maxing your class' main stat wasn't always the obvious no-brainer chose. Even aside the species issue I find such homogeneity unfortunate.

I 100% agree with this, and it would eliminate this whole argument.

Unfortunately, that's not the game we have. :-(

 

[Bill Zebub]

If we accept that the math doesnt require it, and nobody had even tried to demonstrate that it does which I've seen, then yes, its a belief, or more likely, a simple desire.

Power gaming would not simply be 'effective'. Getting into conversations around defining subjective terms leads to long threads so I'll ask you.

What is 'power gaming'?

To me it's prioritizing mechanical effectiveness (specifically in combat) above all other considerations.

Just the fact that many of us are saying that we want to play non-traditional race/class combinations, but we also want the +3, should demonstrate that there are "other considerations" involved.

Unless you secretly (or not so secretly) suspect that we really just think that a Barbarian with Halfling Luck, or a Wizard with Relentless Endurance, is going to be the new unstoppable power combo. :-/

EDIT: Umbran's comments about terminology are really spot on. I've been too willing, for the sake of moving the conversation forward and not devolving into semantic arguments, to accept the terms "powergaming" and "optimization". But, seriously, not wanting a -1 penalty to all your primary rolls (as the price for choosing a flavorful race) is a case of neither.

 

[Scribe]

but we also want the +3

Why?

 

[Maxperson]

This is what got me banned, within seconds:

vince_snetteton: This guy just butchered Haste. He has the mechanics all wrong. Read the spell. You can only do specific things with the spell, and he had already cast Misty Step, which is a Bonus Action. The DM has to know the rules, as well as this guy./
vince_snetteton: You guys can play D&D, or you can pretend you are in a Critical Role production. You can't do both. You are clearly not playing D&D.

You are wrong there. With 5e anyway. The design intent of 5e is to be able to play without knowing each rule down pat. If a mistake is made, so what. Move on. If nobody knows what to do, the DM should make a ruling(over rules) and not delay the game by stopping things to dig through books. Look it up later. Getting it wrong still = playing D&D, since in a rulings over rules edition like 5e, the rules are secondary.

Jeremy Crawford gave an example of how he DMs. He doesn't track things closely and lets the players keep track of when to make concentration checks and such. If they forget to make one and realize it 3 rounds later, then he assumes the PC "made a successful roll" and they move on. If they get a spell wrong, well it just happened to work that way that one time due to some variance of magic or something.

He's still playing D&D when running his game that way. So are you if you're fixated on getting every little thing exactly right, interrupting the game when necessary to look things up. D&D is a very robust game that can be played many different ways.

I have to say, reading your posts for this short time has me convinced that you're a One True Way player and feel that how you do things is how everyone should do them. Am I wrong?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Yeah, my firsts answer indeed is that they have strength 10. And that's pathetic for an orc. Other orcs might mock them, saying that they're "As weak as a human" or something like that.

And sure, you could invent some weakening curse or something like that. So if I was playing a halfling in your game, could I invent such a curse to drop my strength to four, and gain more point buy points from it so I can minmax my other stats?



I mean I see PCs as people with heroic potential. Gifted noobs. But not as super special chosen ones. There are many such gifted people in the world, some eventually become legendary heroes, some die in a ditch.


Ultimately you of course can always come up with fictional justification for anything. Curse, blessing, bit by a radioactive owlbear, you name it. I just don't think such an approach where the PCs are expected to be unique superheroes is compatible with a splat based game design. Perhaps my halfling was blessed by an angel to have wings, perhaps my trasmutation wizard has uncovered secret art of fleshmending and thus can cast all healing spells etc. Simply put, if I play a splat based game, I want the splatss to define things and actually tell us something about the reality of the setting. If I want unique heroes not bound by such limitations I play a game that is actually designed to build characters from scratch and where I can freely mix and match anything.

Why are all of your rebuttal cases giving a PC extra things (points or flying) instead of letting them change an ASI? Is it because you can't think of a case where just changing an ASI makes a PC ridiculous?

 

[Scribe]

EDIT: Umbran's comments about terminology are really spot on. I've been too willing, for the sake of moving the conversation forward and not devolving into semantic arguments, to accept the terms "powergaming" and "optimization". But, seriously, not wanting a -1 penalty to all your primary rolls (as the price for choosing a flavorful race) is a case of neither.

Interesting, so this would imply that +3 is the literal default.

The math doesnt bear that out, at least that I've seen.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Why?

Um, the same reason we exchange our normal sword for a +1 magic sword, when given the chance?

Or are you claiming that you would leave the sword behind, for roleplaying reasons?