D&D General How do you like your ASIs?

[Frozen_Heart]

If everyone has identical ASI options, I don't really get the point of ASI's in the first place. Just bake them into the standard point buy and decouple them from which species you're playing altogether. Or don't, as stats are already starting too high imo. Lvl 1-20 should be zero to hero.

Ideally I'd like each race to get a fixed +1, a fixed -1, and a floating +1. With a starting cap of 15 in each stat.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

How I'd read the poll result is that a bit over half of people do not want ability scores to be affected by species at all (completely floating or no ASIs), a bit over ten percent is 'other' and the rest, a about 35 percent, want ability scores be affected by the species at least in some way.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Also, I really think we should stop to consider why we have ability scores. I'll repost what I said in another thread:

Though I have to wonder why we even have ability scores at this point. It has been demonstrated that a large portion of player base just wants to have the best possible score in their main stat. So every wizard will have same int, every barbarian same strength etc. And there usually is pretty clear expectations for other scores as well. Everyone needs decent con, melee classes even more so. And many classes have required secondary scores. So at the point your class is chosen, most of your ability scores are de facto locked. You can fiddle with some 'does my fighter have int 8 and cha 10 or vice versa' but that's not really terribly meaningful. So why even pretend it is a choice? Remove ability scores and tie bonuses directly to the class. This is not really something I want, but I think it would be more honest and logical than have this sort of illusion of choice.

 

[Yaarel]

I'm not sure that you'd need to increase rolling. According to this breakdown of 4d6, Drop Lowest, the Standard Array falls short of rolling—instead, the Standard Array should be 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9.

I think this array should be the official method of character creation.

Then make both rolling and pointbuy the variant rules.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

My preference is no ASI, with more distinctive racial traits.

I'm fine with fixed ASI.

I actively despise floating ASI.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Also, I really think we should stop to consider why we have ability scores. I'll repost what I said in another thread:

Though I have to wonder why we even have ability scores at this point. It has been demonstrated that a large portion of player base just wants to have the best possible score in their main stat. So every wizard will have same int, every barbarian same strength etc. And there usually is pretty clear expectations for other scores as well. Everyone needs decent con, melee classes even more so. And many classes have required secondary scores. So at the point your class is chosen, most of your ability scores are de facto locked. You can fiddle with some 'does my fighter have int 8 and cha 10 or vice versa' but that's not really terribly meaningful. So why even pretend it is a choice? Remove ability scores and tie bonuses directly to the class. This is not really something I want, but I think it would be more honest and logical than have this sort of illusion of choice.

Gonna be honest, this is just one part of my crusade to eradicate all boring naked numbers in the game. No ASIs, not +X weapons with nothing else to speak of, etc.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Other: Floating ASI by default, and each race having a sidebar that suggests options that are "classic" or "archetypal" or the like, for folks (to include veteran players) who want a pre-set option that isn't "optimize for your class". This would also be a neat opportunity to suggest new archetypes through ASIs, if they wanted, get folks thinking about new approaches to elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.

While that sounds nice, there's a certain kind of player who wouldn't find it "playing against type" if they don't somehow suffer for it. They play against type to handicap themselves to make the game more challenging, not for the sake of subverting tropes.

The struggle of building an effective gnome barbarian despite the race having penalties to key barbarian numbers is part pf the fun, for them. If they could start and end just as strong (in all meaningful ways) to an orc, it's not really overcoming anything (even if they take the penalty - it just feels different if the penalty isn't part of a package).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Here's the thing to me.

The D&D race design is a straightjacket.

Not to making characters. But to designing races.

As a whole, D&D fans are overly concerned with how thinks look and not how they work.

Or in big fat dumb dumb terms.

The issue is not fixed or floating ASI. It's is making almost every race a +2/+1 race just for aesthetics.

If a race is supposed to be strong, it should have more than +2 Strength.

"Well you can't have a PC at level 1 with 22 Strength!"

Well why not? It is only +2 up from the 18 for hit/damage. Just give the race a negative.

"Well you can't have negatives. It removes class options for races!"

Well why does it? If Orcs have a int penalty, why can't you design weapon and melee spells for orc wizards to attack with their 18 STR? Why can't orcs, goliaths, and minotaurs use their crazy high STR to headlock a charm/dominate spell right into your face. Good luck resisting that.

And if a race doesn't have real ability score aspects attached to the race, then it doesn't need Ability Score Increases. Genasi are part djinn. How about cut the racial ASI and make it more elemental or genie?

This is fun but I think at this point you're well outside D&D design space for any edition.

So really you're describing a different game which perhaps shares a lot of rules with D&D. I would also suggest a lot of people would put playability ahead of the inherent complexity of what you're describing, especially as it would be either hard to balance, or more bland than one might hope. Dark Sun kind of went there but this sounds like it's going further.

 

[loverdrive]

Voted no ASI, but if we really need ASI at the character creation, it should come from class.

 

[Umbran]

My experience is that

Gosh darn it man, your experience is ANECDOTE!

Your websites and discords, added together, do not comprise a player base that comes anywhere near explaining the number of sales and players we seem to have. WotC said in 2017 that they already had 9.5 million players in North America - the online discussion presence is a small, self-selected fraction of that, and so cannot be used as an indicator of the hobby as a whole.

Most folks just play, and don't talk about it where you can see them, and extrapolating your experience to them is not valid.

So, if you are considering that WotC "caved in" to a vocal minority, remember that you are, yourself, in a vocal minority, as is everyone on these boards.

What seems a simple explanation for WotC behavior is this: The change makes very little mechanical difference. Both those who wanted such change, and those who resist it, are vocal minorities. So, their choice is to cheese off a vocal minority who cares about status quo of building fictional worlds, and a vocal minority who cares about how it looks kinda racist.

Whether either group is "right" is immaterial - as a practical matter, they're now doomed to cheese off a vocal minority, over something the bulk of players probably don't care all that much about. They made a choice to try to be (or at elast appear to be) compassionate to real-world people (even if you feel it is in a meaningless, unnecessary way) over maintaining the status quo.

Maybe, getting upset at companies choosing compassion isn't the best idea. Asking companies to be better, but only when it doesn't upset your pet status quo... isn't a great look.