D&D General How do you like your ASIs?

[Minigiant]

That is the very point. D&D 5e has no "novice" nor "rookie" no whatever other term you wish to apply to a 0 level char (I do remember older versions have 0 level retainers though).

Level 1 is not "novice", no "rookie". Novice is handwaved in the Background chosen by the player, maybe in the backstory. So to suggest "I want to skip levels 1-2, because they are no fun, is well...I have a term for that. Hell, why not skip level 3 as well, given the first ASI is not until level 4?

Incorrect.

5e has a novice tier. A level 1 PC is trained but inexperienced and knows things they can't put into practice yet.

People like to skip it, because like a rookie cop, there are only so many adventures they can do alone without a veteran babysitting them. So it gets repetitive fast.. It also doesn't allow for specilization.

5e doesn't had a rookie tier because there is even less you can trust an untrained inexperienced rookie to do.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So when you comment and say "It is not about what you personally want", but the sentence before you state "people are sick......", you have been elected to speak for the majority of the D&D community?

Yes.

Yes I have.

I'm sorry you missed the election.

That, or we just had a thread discussing it and I neither said 'I', nor 'everyone'.

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

You literally just pointed out in your own post a major difference in ability between a halfling with 17STR and a Goliath with 17STR (one can't use heavy weapons, or by extension great weaoon fighting feat). Then you go on to double down and say how it's MANDATORY that only the Goliath have the 17STR because it's the only way to keep things right.

I was pointing out the silliness of the debate.
The natural extension of this debate is that limitations based on size be done away with next. And that is simply the wrong direction for the game to take.

Yes, we should be doubling down on species based differences. Under no circumstances should a 3'3 " 40 pound Halfling, even one that spent their lives dedicated to martial fighting, even at level 19, have the ability to dead lift as much 250 pound 6'6" Half-Orc, even one that has dedicated its life to the arcane arts. Even though this is a game with magic everywhere, there are basic bio-mechanical laws that simply can't be broken. So until WOTC releases some kind of "relative strength" modifiers (which they won't, because that is "hard" and "boring and no fun"), we are stuck with the abstractions we have today, and that means hard limits on species. You do note that the game already acknowledges the variations in species by simply height and weight, which tracks pretty closely to real world human differences. So other limitations are perfectly reasonable.

You want to have a debate about Int, or Wis, or CHA...yeah, these are attributes that I can concede may not have limitations across the species. But the physical ones...nope. There has to be some "reality" in the game.

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

Incorrect.

5e has a novice tier. A level 1 PC is trained but inexperienced and knows things they can't put into practice yet.

People like to skip it, because like a rookie cop, there are only so many adventures they can do alone without a veteran babysitting them. So it gets repetitive fast.. It also doesn't allow for specilization.

5e doesn't had a rookie tier because there is even less you can trust an untrained inexperienced rookie to do.

No, you like to skip it. And I will grant you that many experienced players want to skip levels 1 and 2.
But under no circumstances should a new player and even more so, a new DM, be allowed to skip those levels.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Even though this is a game with magic everywhere, there are basic bio-mechanical laws that simply can't be broken.

-Looks side-eye- at the many non-magical giant birds, the giant insects that can breath, and just plain giants-

Yes, D&D does or should care about Earthican biomechanics.

 

[Vaalingrade]

But under no circumstances should a new player and even more so, a new DM, be allowed to skip those levels.

Who gets to decide this?

What kind of licensing is in place to make sure people are qualified to now play the game the way they enjoy it?

That penalties are in place for an unregistered DM who starts at level 5, or worse, a registered one who allows a new player to start at level 3 so their character actually has their conceptual base abilities in the form of a subclass?

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

-Looks side-eye- at the many non-magical giant birds, the giant insects that can breath, and just plain giants-

Yes, D&D does or should care about Earthican biomechanics.

There is no doubt that D&D trashes the square-cube law of bio-mechanics when you get into Large and above sizes. But keep in mind, we do have these things called "fossils" on this planet that seem to indicate some reasonably big creatures walked, and flew, on this planet.

 

[Minigiant]

No, you like to skip it. And I will grant you that many experienced players want to skip levels 1 and 2.
But under no circumstances should a new player and even more so, a new DM, be allowed to skip those levels.

People can skip whatever they want.

If they don't want to play Year 2 Harry Potter and want to start as Year 7 Harry Potter, they can.

 

[Vaalingrade]

There is no doubt that D&D trashes the square-cube law of bio-mechanics when you get into Large and above sizes. But keep in mind, we do have these things called "fossils" on this planet that seem to indicate some reasonably big creatures walked, and flew, on this planet.

Yes, when the atmosphere would have murdered humans and also resulted in constant fires.

D&D is a fantasy world where things work different. It would be nice if people, including the designers sometimes accepted that instead of just writing Medieval Europe with a thin coat of magic slapped on without ever ever ever exploring the implications of real, operational magic in the world.

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

Who gets to decide this?

What kind of licensing is in place to make sure people are qualified to now play the game the way they enjoy it?

That penalties are in place for an unregistered DM who starts at level 5, or worse, a registered one who allows a new player to start at level 3 so their character actually has their conceptual base abilities in the form of a subclass?

What decides that someone new to the mechanics of D&D should start at the beginning? Really?

I am mentoring a new DM. I keep using the same term: KISS.
And yeah, at my gaming cafe, the clique of DM's have universally agreed that no new player plays a spellcaster. Most won't even let an experienced player who has never played a spellcaster before get to play a Warlock as a first-time spellcaster.

The logic for those guidelines are the same as why new players should start at level 1. The game is hard enough to learn without all those additional mechanics of higher levels.