D&D General How do you like your ASIs?

[Helldritch]

I agree.

And I the same.

 

[Morrus]

Then perhaps you should create a thespian group and stop pretending you are playing D&D. Given you played 5 sessions before even selecting a class, it is impossible to say you were playing D&D, since there is no level 0 in 5e, and you have to pick a class from the beginning.

Perhaps you should stop gatekeeping.

 

[Lanefan]

If you assume that Rule 0 means you can make up any rule you like,

It does.

then you may as well call chess D&D, because you call your Knights Rogues, your Queen a Wizard, and your pawns Fighters. It is the equivalent.

At a ridiculous extreme, yes it is.

Ignoring the ridiculous, however, one can rule-0 the hell out of the game and still recognize it as - and call it - D&D.

Either that, or I've been doing it wrong for a hella long time.

 

[Guest 7030100]

Then perhaps you should create a thespian group and stop pretending you are playing D&D. Given you played 5 sessions before even selecting a class, it is impossible to say you were playing D&D, since there is no level 0 in 5e, and you have to pick a class from the beginning.

Well... if you scroll through DM's Guild, you'll see thousands of products offering new and variant rules of all sorts, including (I'm guessing) plenty of options for starting off with a classless level 0.
All that stuff appears in the official online D&D shop with the blessing of the publisher of D&D. It is "D&D".

 

[Scott Christian]

Oh the monk is amazing.
It's just very squishy at what the roles you expect it to be and/or gasses out very quickly because its' core design is based on ability scores with other classes' are based on equipment and proficiency.

All the classes and subclasses based on ability score are lower on the totem pole.

I think you hit the answer there: it was a large group.

Suboptimal characters can often do far better in a larger group where their weaknesses can be more easily covered off by other characters yet their strengths can still shine through.

A Monk in a three-character party is probably going to end up a liablility, assuming typical-average play.
A Monk in a party of 8? Rock on, dude!

Edit to add: and this was just as true in 1e as it seems to be now.

I definitely think the large group helped. And often, especially at higher levels, we only had one combat per long rest. That made the monk (and paladin for that matter) really really shine.

 

[Maxperson]

And I the same.

Then we are all in agreement!

 

[Maxperson]

If you assume that Rule 0 means you can make up any rule you like

Er, that's literally what rule 0 means. That wasn't rule 0, though. That was advice on how to play 5e in a rulings over rules system.

, then you may as well call chess D&D, because you call your Knights Rogues, your Queen a Wizard, and your pawns Fighters.

False Equivalence for the lose!

It is the equivalent.

No it ain't.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

If you assume that Rule 0 means you can make up any rule you like, then you may as well call chess D&D, because you call your Knights Rogues, your Queen a Wizard, and your pawns Fighters. It is the equivalent.

I had a portion of my campaign where the PCs spent hours in a demiplane slaying a dragon where time ran very fast as compared to their home plane.

When they returned thousands of years had passed, the elves had all died out, and magic was gone from the world. With the help of some helicopter flying dwarves they were able to adventure the radioactive wasteland and locate the last raining magician, the elf who was head of the mage academy in their time who had lichified himself. The lich was able to destroy his reality and use the energies to cast a one-time ritual to send the PCs back to their original time but with knowledge of what would happen to the world if they didn't alter some important events.

The adventure was awesome and built on a heavily slathered layer of Rule 0.

Or do you want to hear about the time my campaign was set in the imagination of a child on the border of becoming a teen and how it reflected in the fantasy world as an impending apocalypse?

Rule 0 is the key to the shackles of worn out tropes.

 

[Lyxen]

Not really. I can agree that "building a reasonably efficient character and not gimping yourself" by making your primary ability scores highest - as you are advised to do in the PHB - is not power gaming.

Good then.

Up thread your actual words implied that choosing an alignment of ASI and efficacy in play, was always power gaming. If true, the order of choosing race, class, and score allocation doesn't change that. I feel like your position has changed and I certainly would not find fault for that or hold you to any previous position.

No, you twist my words and do selective quoting, so you might get that impression, but it's only you.

From the OP - "For some reason the world comes together to mandate one very important rule that will permeate all societies for the endless future. Oddly, this declaration reflects how WotC is allowed to present character options during creation in their D&D game. There can only be ONE official method."

Nothing here about future edition in particular. See above, you are doing it again, both to the OP and myself.

I very happily agree that there are a wide range of behaviours. In saying that, I cannot help but recall with irony that you recently very firmly told me that there was no such wide range of behaviours.

Sorry, but no, this is again you inventing things.

That you knew player motivations better than they knew themselves, and any alignment of scores with efficacy in game must amount to power gaming. You don't recall making those arguments up-thread? Comments like "...it still boils down to exactly one thing: "I want a 16 because others can have it, and the game is unappealing to me because I am not as powerful as others (coud be)"?

That is my thought about floating ASIs, how does this invalidate that there are whole ranges of power gaming ?

Do you recall your words up-thread that "let's look at rolling stats, which is still the only default option in the game. I'm not sure how many people are using this, in percentage. There are lots of people who use it for power reasons, because it's the only way in the rules to get really powerful scores..." Is it right to say that over the course of our conversation, you have changed your mind?

No, but you have changed my text, and in particular just snipped that quote exactly when I started explaining what was happening. As multiple other persons wrote, the problem is usually not ONE option in particular (individually, the options are usually fairly well proof-read and playtested), it's the combination that creates problem.

In this case, powergamers don't like rolling if they can't modify the scores after, as they are stuck with odd scores which cause them problems especially when forcing them to thing ASI vs. Feat. It also disrupt the builds that they find on the internet and confuses in particular those who are mainly copycats. But if combined with the Floating ASIs that allow them to customise the scores however they want after rolling, and getting rid of at least one odd score and pumping that 18 to 20, then it's the best combination ever.

So why don't you go back to the topic at hand and stop nitpicking every single word I write, especially if it's to change them, selectively quote and misinterpret ?

 

[Lyxen]

It's not really a dichotomy, though. You don't have to pick a race because it's cool or because it has a good stat bonus. It can be both and in equal amounts. I have at time picked a race because it was cool and I had a good concept and the bonus didn't align. Other times I picked a race because it was cool and I had a good concept, and the bonus did align. I've never picked any race for bonus only, or a race that I didn't think was cool.

Absolutely, in this like in most other things, it's usually a wide range of choices, and possibly on multiple axis. I thought I was clear about saying "just for the stat bonus", but you're right, it's better to make it clearer.

Also, you do not become a full-grown munchkin as soon as you do a little bit of optimisation, it's a bit like alignment, it's only if you start doing things repeatedly in the same direction that you become chaotic evil...